01
Establish the population
Identify the completed work in scope, its commercial basis and the billing period. Keep estimated exposure separate from confirmed items.
Accountable team: Finance owner
USE-CASE PLAYBOOK
Prevent revenue leakage
Give blocked billable work a reason, an owner and a next action.
Explore the workflow
THE OPERATING QUESTION
When the next decision cannot wait.
Completed work is not progressing into billing, or the same exceptions recur at each reporting cycle.
An unbilled balance can include normal billing timing, missing approval and a disputed commercial condition. Treat these differently. Begin with traceable work and agreed contract terms, then identify the condition preventing each item from progressing.
For Finance, delivery managers and account owners.
WORKED EXAMPLE
Put the decision in context.
Illustrative scenario: an approved timesheet is associated with an expired purchase-order reference. Finance can see the work, but the account owner must resolve the reference before invoice preparation can proceed. Recording the exact blocker avoids asking delivery to resubmit evidence it has already supplied.
A PRACTICAL WAY FORWARD
Four steps. An owner at every handoff.
02
Classify the blocker
Distinguish approval, rate, purchase-order, acceptance and invoice-preparation issues. Give each item a stable identifier.
Accountable team: Billing team
03
Resolve with evidence
Assign the correction to the owner who can address it. Retain the approval or revised record that establishes readiness.
Accountable team: Account or delivery owner
04
Reconcile movement
Track what moved to invoicing and what remains blocked. Use the same identifier to avoid counting an item repeatedly.
Accountable team: Finance owner
HANDLE THE EXCEPTION
The path is rarely a straight line.
A disputed scope change needs a commercial decision. Generating an invoice does not establish customer agreement, recognised revenue or collected cash.
WHAT SHOULD CHANGE
A decision people can act on.
A reconciled exception view and a clearer route from completed work to billing. Recovery and cash collection remain distinct events.
Explore the Clousys capabilities →EVIDENCE, NOT ACTIVITY
Know what you will measure.
Age of blocked items
Elapsed time in the defined blocked state, grouped by reason.
Invoice-ready value
Work meeting the agreed prerequisites for invoice preparation.
Recurring exceptions
New items arising from a previously identified cause.
PUT IT INTO PRACTICE
Make the next operating review more useful.
Take the framework to your team. Bring one live workflow, its owners and the evidence behind the next decision.
