PlumbingBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

The Plumbing Billing Month-End Review: A One-Hour Checklist

Billing mistakes in a plumbing company rarely announce themselves. A job never invoiced, a deposit never applied, a statement sent to the wrong contact — each one sits quietly until a customer calls upset or the money simply never comes. An hour at the end of each month catches almost all of it.

Here is a checklist you can work through with a cup of coffee and the billing screens open.

Why Month-End Matters

The habits in Plumbing Cash Flow in Slow Months: Billing Habits That Keep Money Coming In keep money flowing day to day. The month-end review makes sure nothing fell through the gaps between those habits.

1. Every Completed Job Has an Invoice

In PlumbingBossPro, tapping Complete creates the invoice, so this is mostly automatic. Still check for:

• Jobs that were done but never marked complete, because a tech forgot to tap the button
• Jobs skipped with a note that need rescheduling, not billing
• Work done on a callback or side visit that never got its own job

Look at the Scheduled List for the month and make sure every job is either completed or deliberately moved.

2. Open Invoices

Pull up every unpaid invoice. For each one, ask:

• Is past-due follow-up running on it?
• Is there an unanswered customer question about it?
• Does it need a personal text or a phone call?

Older invoices deserve the most attention. The routine is in Past-Due Plumbing Invoices: A Follow-Up Routine That Gets Paid Without Burning Bridges.

3. Declined Cards

Find invoices where the card on file was declined. Make sure each customer got a message asking them to update their card in the customer app. Note any customer who has had more than one decline — they may be better off paying online each time.

4. Deposits and Big Jobs

For every water heater swap, repipe or other job where you took a deposit or progress payment, check:

• Was the job done this month? If so, does the final invoice show the deposit and bill only the balance?
• Is the job still scheduled? Is the deposit sitting on the client waiting for it?
• Was the job canceled? Was the deposit handled under your written policy?

Deposits are the easiest thing to lose track of and the hardest to explain if you do.

5. Monthly Statements

For every property manager, landlord and restaurant set to Monthly:

• Did the statement go out, to the right contact?
• Is every line labeled with the right address, including unit numbers?
• Did the restaurant's jetting visits all land on it?
• Is last month's statement paid?

6. Plan Visits

Open the Waiting List and look at recurring visits: yearly flushes, softener service, backflow tests, jetting. Overdue pins mean customers who paid for a plan are not getting it. Schedule them. Plan visits coming due next month with expired cards should get a reminder now.

7. Sales Tax and Records

Glance through a few invoices to make sure tax is being added the way you set it up. If you serve areas with different rates, check one from each. Pull the billing reports your accountant wants and save them where you keep your records. The reports themselves are covered in Plumbing Billing Reports: What to Look At Every Week and Every Month.

8. One Look at the Big Picture

Finish with the totals: what was invoiced this month, what was paid, what is still open. Compare to last month. You do not need a spreadsheet model. You just want to know whether things are moving the right way and whether anything looks odd.

Write down any problem you found more than once. If several jobs were never marked complete, that is a tech training issue. If several monthly statements went to the wrong person, update the contacts. Fix the cause, not just the invoice.

Keep a simple log of each review: the date, what you found and what you fixed. After a few months, the log shows whether the same problems keep coming back, and it gives your accountant a clear picture if they ever ask how billing is checked. Reading back through it twice a year often points to the one habit worth fixing next.

Make It a Routine

Pick a day, like the first business day of the month, and block the hour. The first few reviews may take longer while you clean up old issues. After that, an hour is usually plenty. Office user roles let you hand the review to an office manager while keeping the owner in the loop.

For how month-end fits with the rest of plumbing billing, visit the plumbing invoicing software page.