What teams see
- Work waits between close billing period and collect time entries.
- Owners reconstruct status from Time tracking platform and ERP platform.
Professional Services
Time and expense to invoice preparation
Billing teams manually compare time and expense records with engagement rules before invoice preparation can begin.
Business problem
Billing teams manually compare time and expense records with engagement rules before invoice preparation can begin.
Why it happens
- No shared state spans Time tracking platform, ERP platform, Accounting platform.
- Decision and exception rules are applied inconsistently.
Why it becomes expensive
- Capacity is consumed by coordination and rework.
- Late exceptions weaken visibility and service quality.
Business outcomes
- Shorter finance handoff cycle
- Fewer handoff and missing-information exceptions
- Clear ownership from close billing period to finance handoff
- Inspectable decisions and recovery
Measurable KPIs
- Turnaround time: Elapsed time from close billing period to finance handoff.
- Manual intervention rate: Share of items needing a person outside defined review conditions.
- Exception age: Time unresolved exceptions remain without a completed action.
- Successful completion rate: Share of valid workflow items completing without terminal failure.
How the workflow works
- Close billing period — Accept and identify the time and expense to invoice preparation trigger. Time tracking platform
- Collect time entries — Execute collect time entries with validated sample data and an auditable result. Time tracking platform
- Collect expenses — Execute collect expenses with validated sample data and an auditable result. ERP platform
- Validate engagement rules — Execute validate engagement rules with validated sample data and an auditable result. Accounting platform
- Identify exceptions — Execute identify exceptions with validated sample data and an auditable result. Time tracking platform
- Manager approval — Execute manager approval with validated sample data and an auditable result. SEIDO Review Queue
- Prepare billing record — Execute prepare billing record with validated sample data and an auditable result. Accounting platform
- Finance handoff — Execute finance handoff with validated sample data and an auditable result. Time tracking platform
- Audit and KPI update — Persist the execution outcome, audit facts and workflow measurement events. SEIDO execution store
Integrations and ownership
- Time tracking platform: Provide workflow input
- ERP platform: Lookup and update context
- Accounting platform: Receive controlled outcome
Human responsibility: Engagement manager
Failure and recovery
Time tracking platform is temporarily unavailable.
Retry with capped exponential backoff; preserve the run and move it to the inspectable failure queue after the limit.
Required data for collect time entries is malformed or missing.
Stop downstream actions and show the missing fields, source evidence and correction action to the named reviewer.
The trigger or provider event is delivered more than once.
Return the existing execution identified by the idempotency key and do not repeat downstream business actions.
The human decision expires before completion.
Escalate to the configured substitute, retain the original request and record both expiry and reassignment.
When not to build this
- Monthly volume is too low to justify integrating Time tracking platform, ERP platform, Accounting platform.
- An existing configured platform already handles time and expense to invoice preparation with adequate ownership and reporting.
- Reliable source data or supported API access is unavailable.
- No business owner has authority to define the decision and exception rules.
Related workflows
Intelligent inbound lead routingLeads arrive through disconnected forms, inboxes and campaigns and are assigned too slowly or to the wrong owner.Lead qualification and account-fit workflowSales representatives spend valuable time manually investigating prospects that do not match the commercial profile.Sales discovery to structured CRMImportant details from discovery calls and notes do not reach the CRM consistently, weakening follow-up and forecasting.