Clients and practice

An architecture practice may work with a homeowner, a developer and a property company whose names look similar. Billing Coordinator maintains the business partner name and stable code, then records the contact, address and eligibility note. Those details help the team identify who the document concerns before a fee is prepared or cash is applied.

Admin maintains the practice organization and team member identities. Each accounting document points to an organization, owner and business partner. That context matters when a staff member changes responsibility or a practice operates through more than one entity. The bill and its supporting evidence should remain understandable after the original preparer moves on.

• Identify the client. Billing Coordinator checks the business partner code and contact details before linking a document. Use the eligibility note to capture the team’s relevant billing context. Confirm active status before selecting a partner for new work.
• Establish the practice. Admin records the organization code, time zone and currency setting. Finance Manager agrees the USD basis for the monetary records used in the pilot and checks account ownership against the same organization.
• Assign responsibility. Admin links each team member to their user identity and organization. Billing Coordinator assigns a document owner so the responsible person can find their fee documents and resolve questions about the charge.

Bring a cleaned client list with stable source codes and the addresses used for billing. Identify duplicates before importing open documents. Agree who may change a client’s address or eligibility note and how the change is checked against the source instruction. Preserve the client reference on earlier documents when contact details change.

Map staff logins to team members and confirm the active status of both identities. Agree which organization each person may work within. Test ownership with an ordinary staff login before granting broader access. A time zone decision also needs to be consistent across staff and practice records so dated events can be interpreted correctly.

Imagine an example practice billing a developer for the design of a small office renovation. The developer uses a property company as the billing counterparty. Billing Coordinator selects that company’s stable code, records the agreed contact and prepares the document under the practice’s correct organization.

Cash Specialist later receives payment with the developer’s trading name in the bank reference. They compare the intended partner and document rather than selecting the first similar name. If the receipt belongs to a different property company, hold the application for clarification. Ask Finance Manager to trace the partner on the document and receipt during the rehearsal.

Repeat the case after a change of document owner. The new owner should find the existing fee document and its evidence under their authorized scope. The former owner should retain only the access required by the agreed policy. Admin reviews the result with both people before applying the change more widely.

• Active business partners — Current client identities with codes, contacts and billing context.
• My fee documents — The signed-in owner’s fee documents for daily preparation and follow-up.

Continue with document preparation to approval and verified cash to reconciliation. Confirm client identity at each handoff.