The billing process holds a service provider’s fastest win: most of it costs you no new customer, just a better workflow. Whoever bills faster and more completely improves liquidity immediately – without selling more. Even so, people often start with the software. That’s the wrong place to start. teamspace is the tool; it models and automates a process it cannot replace. A good billing process is built in layers, from the top down – first the goal, then the sub-goals and metrics, and only at the end the way it is mapped in the system. This process guide first describes that path and then shows the core process in teamspace.
Guiding principle: The fastest win lies not in more revenue, but in less breakage. Every hour transferred by hand, every late invoice and every forgotten open item costs money – and none of them needs a new customer.
Five layers: from goal to lived practice
Before you set anything up in teamspace, clarify the layers above it – and keep one layer below in mind: the people who ultimately live the process. Each one answers a different question and builds on the one before:
- Goal & core question. At its heart, billing answers: How do we turn services into revenue quickly and completely? “Quickly” (speed) and “completely” (no billable work is lost) are both meant.
- Sub-goals – three levers. The core question breaks down into three levers you steer separately:
- Completeness: no billable service slips through – every hour, flat rate and material lands on an invoice.
- Speed: invoices in days rather than weeks – and paid sooner.
- Forecast: reliable revenue planning from open orders instead of gut feeling.
- Measurable data. You can only steer what you measure. The metrics of billing – revenue (actual), invoice lead time, realisation rate, revenue forecast, outstanding receivables, DSO and share of e-invoicing – and whether teamspace delivers them, are set out in Key figures for the billing process.
- Modelling in the tool. Now – and only now – teamspace comes in. The decisive lever is the unbroken data flow: approved times and costs become invoice lines automatically according to the billing method – no double entry, no typos. E-invoicing (ZUGFeRD/XRechnung) and reminders hang directly off this.
- Rollout & training – the people. A mapped process is still only a promise. “Completely into revenue” only works if the team books promptly and without gaps: every billable hour, every expense, every material. That takes rollout, training and conventions (What is billable? When do we lock?). This closes the loop: revenue and realisation rate from layer 3 are only as complete as the bookings from layer 5. Helpful: Rolling out teamspace in your company and the exercise “From quote to invoice”.
The crux: most people jump straight to layer 4. Then you have invoicing software – but without a defined goal (layer 1), without metrics (layer 3) and without a team that captures everything (layer 5), billing doesn’t get any better, just more digital.
Stocktake: where do we stand today?
Every improvement starts with an honest stocktake: How do we really bill at the moment? A maturity-level scale helps here – six levels from “ad hoc” to “end-to-end”:
| Level | Maturity | How to recognise it |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Unplanned | Invoices ad hoc, often only at quarter-end. |
| 1 | Manual | Invoices in Word or Excel, hours kept separately. |
| 2 | Structured | Invoicing software in use, but line items transferred manually. |
| 3 | Assisted | Invoice proposal with review, ZUGFeRD and XRechnung. |
| 4 | Automated | Invoice from billing rules, multi-stage reminders, DATEV export. |
| 5 | End-to-end | Up-to-date daily run, automatic reminder run, daily reconciliation. |
Honestly place your billing at one level. The jump almost always succeeds one level at a time – and the most valuable is from 2 to 3: only once the invoice proposal arises from the captured services themselves do transfer errors disappear and the lead time fall.
Note on mandatory deadlines: The e-invoicing standards ZUGFeRD and XRechnung become mandatory in stages from 2025/2027/2028. Anyone at level 3+ has already covered this – see Setting up and using e-invoicing.
Where do we want to go?
The target picture is not “level 5 for everyone”. It’s the level that fits your business model and invoice volume – and that can deliver the layer-3 metrics you genuinely need.
And an important point about working together: we provide the core process – the stages from capturing services to analysis are set up in teamspace and proven. But the details – which billing methods you use, what your approval and reminder levels look like, what counts as billable – we don’t know those, you do. A good approach therefore emerges jointly.
The core process in teamspace
This is what the predefined core process looks like – the chain from service to cash receipt. Every stage has its own article; the list of steps at the top of this page is the short version.
1. Capture services. At the start comes prompt, gap-free capture: book project times, plus expenses & material and, in service, the service times on the ticket. Only captured services can be billed.
2. Approve & lock. Before billing, times are reviewed and secured against changes: lock time entries, if needed with the approval workflow of the timesheet.
3. Create the invoice. From the order and the approved services the invoice is created – the billing method determines how each line item becomes an invoice line. Recurring items (maintenance, licences) run via recurring invoices.
4. E-invoice & dispatch. Once reviewed, it is sent as a PDF or as an e-invoice (ZUGFeRD/XRechnung); the BT fields are the look-up reference for the structured data.
5. Open items & reminders. After dispatch, payment receipt counts: reminders & credit control detects overdue invoices, switches reminder levels and keeps the receivables status in view.
6. Analyse. The close is formed by the financial reports: revenue (invoicing analysis), expected income (future revenue) and the planned/actual comparison (post-calculation).
Upstream: The run from quote to invoice is set out concisely in From quote to invoice; the mental model behind every invoicing action in Understanding documents: status & document rights.
Going deeper
These articles belong to billing but aren’t needed for every start:
- Invoicing – introduction – the overview of the whole module.
- Recharging costs to customers – get external costs and material onto the invoice.
- Document templates, approvals & commissions – layouts, four-eyes review and commissions (for administrators).
- Articles and price lists – set up the price basis (for administrators).
You’ll find the complete list of all articles on this process at the bottom of the process page under “All articles for this process”.
Related topics
- Key figures for the billing process Key figures Concept
- The six billing methods Invoicing Concept
- The billing process on teamspace.de – goals, maturity levels and metrics at a glance