In many organisations, month-end invoicing looks like a reconstruction job. Timesheets are exported, the right day rate is dug out of the contract, rebillable expenses are copied over, someone checks that the client really signed off a milestone, and then it all gets typed into the invoicing tool. Every copy is a chance for a mistake, and every day spent cross-checking is a day of cash lost.
AlibeeZ starts from a simple principle: everything the invoice needs already exists in the platform. So there is nothing to re-key, only a draft to review. The panel above illustrates it: at the top, the month’s sources (approved timesheets, rebillable expenses, milestones reached); below, the draft invoices they produced, some ready, one to review, with the total generated. The figures are illustrative, but the mechanics are the product’s.
What feeds a draft invoice
An AlibeeZ invoice is composed by the modules that feed it. Each brings its share, and none of it is retyped.
- Approved time, from time tracking. Only an approved timesheet becomes billable: the approval chain (the manager, then the client-side project lead if you wish) is the filter that guarantees what is billed has been acknowledged.
- The rate and the billing model, carried by the contract: day rate for time and materials, an envelope for capped time and materials, milestones for fixed price, a percentage for progress billing.
- Rebillable expenses, from expense claims: they reach the invoice on their own, with or without margin depending on the client contract.
- Milestones reached, which trigger the matching share of the fixed price.
- The client’s details, from the master data: legal name, billing address, VAT number, payment terms. When creating a client, the SIREN number is enough, through the Pappers connector, to fill these in with no typos.
That is why the gap between what was delivered and what is billed disappears: the invoice is not a second version of reality, it is the same data, formatted.
The invoicing run: generate, review, issue
At the end of the period, invoices are generated in one click from approved time, contracts and the related expenses. AlibeeZ does not produce final invoices straight away: it produces drafts. That is deliberate. The billing team’s or finance department’s work changes in nature: instead of calculating an amount, you check an amount already calculated.
A review rather than a reconstruction
In the panel, two drafts are “ready” and one is marked “review”. The review focuses on the cases that deserve it, instead of going over every line of every invoice. Because each line is backed by its source (an approved timesheet, an approved expense claim, a milestone), a question is settled by tracing back to the entry that produced it.
Approval before issuing, if you want it
Moving from draft to issued invoice can itself follow an approval chain: a validation request goes out before issuing, to the person you have designated. When an invoice may be issued is one of the configurable business rules in AlibeeZ: you set it, you do not build it.
A status trail on every invoice
Each invoice keeps the history of what happened to it: draft created, approved, invoice issued, filed for e-invoicing, exported, awaiting payment. You know who did what, and when, without piecing the story together from emails.
Guardrails before issuing
A billing mistake is expensive once the invoice has left: credit note, reissue, explanation to the client. So AlibeeZ places its checks upstream, at the point where a correction costs nothing.
- Purchase order ceiling: the invoice is approaching or exceeding the amount of the client’s purchase order.
- Day allowance: the days billed are approaching the number set in the contract.
- Budget: the cumulative amount exceeds what was sold.
The alert threshold is set on the envelope (for example at 80% consumed), and the alert goes to the right person: the project lead is told an order is 80% used before an invoice exceeds it. It is usually the cue to get an amendment signed, not the discovery of a dispute.
Numbering specific to each entity
If you invoice from several legal entities, each has its own numbering format and sequence, for example an entity prefix, the financial year, then the sequence number. Each entity’s invoices follow their own sequence, and accounting exports keep those sequences.
After issuing: the invoice keeps travelling
Once issued, the invoice is produced in the expected electronic format and handed to iopole, our Plateforme Agréée, which transmits it to your client and reports the data to the tax authority. That journey, and the statuses that come back from it, has its own article: the journey of an e-invoice.
In parallel, the invoice is pushed to your accounting as journal entries (Pennylane, Cegid, Sage and others) carrying the ledger codes and analytical axes held in AlibeeZ. When a large account mandates its supplier portal, such as Tradeshift, the invoice is filed there in the right format instead of being re-keyed. And if you want an event to trigger something else (a Slack message for every invoice issued, say), an AlibeeZ webhook makes it possible, without waiting for development on our side.
What generation actually changes
A shorter cycle. Invoicing now depends on one thing only: that timesheets are approved. The rest is generated, reviewed and issued. The delay between declaration and invoice shrinks, which is what lets you aim for an invoice that goes out on the 2nd of the month rather than the 15th.
Fewer errors and fewer disputes. The invoice is backed by approved time and approved expenses. Anything challenged is traceable to the entry that produced it, and a dispute is settled with facts.
A billing team that checks instead of copying. The time once spent in reconciliation meetings now goes into a draft review. The quality of upstream entries becomes visible, since an unapproved timesheet is an unbillable timesheet.
Going further
Generation only translates the contract’s rules: our article on billing models in AlibeeZ covers time and materials, capped time and materials, milestones and progress billing. What happens once the invoice is issued, up to payment, is covered in collections and DSO tracking. And for the bigger picture, read how AlibeeZ turns approved time into cash.
Frequently asked questions
Does anything need to be re-keyed to generate an invoice?
No. The invoice is built from approved timesheets, rebillable expenses and reached milestones, with the rate and model carried by the contract. You review a draft instead of reconstructing an amount.
Do rebillable expenses appear on the invoice automatically?
Yes, with or without margin depending on the client contract. The detail comes from the Expenses module, so rebilling requires no re-keying.
How do we avoid exceeding a client’s purchase order?
AlibeeZ alerts you when the order ceiling, the day allowance or the budget is exceeded, with a threshold you set. The alert comes before issuing, while the correction is still simple.
Can we invoice from several legal entities?
Yes. Each entity has its own numbering, sequences, VAT and currency, and accounting exports respect each entity’s sequences.
