GRACE · Module 7 · Project Kickoff

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Use this page to run one monthly accounting cycle. Four dates, one review, and one scorecard read. Work the dates in order and the numbers arrive in time to act on.

The monthly clock

Two of the four dates sit inside Grace. The first belongs to the consultant and the last belongs to the client.

Date	What happens	What slipping it costs
By the 20th	Consultant pre-bills reach Grace. Illustrative, confirm per agreement.	A consultant who bills late makes Grace late. The review opens without the lines it has to verify.
By the 25th	Pre-bill review. Right phases, clean descriptions, backup attached, consultant lines verified.	Errors reach the client rather than being resolved inside Grace. Most disputes originate on a sloppy invoice.
By the 7th	Invoice out.	Work already earned stays in Aged Unbilled and ages another month before it can be collected.
Net-30	Payment falls due 30 days from the invoice date.	The collection clock starts at the invoice date. A late invoice carries the due date with it.

Run the pre-bill review before the 25th

Four criteria define the review: right phases, clean descriptions, backup attached, consultant lines verified.

Right phases. Every line sits in the phase where the work happened. A charge in the wrong phase misreports two phases at once.
Clean descriptions. Each line describes the work in the language of the agreement, so the client’s reviewer recognises what is being billed.
Backup attached. Reimbursables, consultant invoices, and whatever else the agreement requires travel with the invoice.
Consultant lines verified. Review consultant invoices like internal pre-bills: right phase, right amounts against their agreement, clean backup. A disputed consultant line holds the entire invoice.
Retainage checked against the agreement. Some agreements hold 5 to 10 percent of every invoice. Confirm the held percentage matches what was signed.
Resolve, then release. A line questioned inside Grace costs an exchange of email. The same line questioned by a client holds the whole invoice until it is answered.

Read the scorecard in this order

The read has a fixed order. Run it at project level, then run it again at phase level.

Read	What it is	What it says
1 · Revenue	Recognized revenue to date	What the project has earned
2 · Effort	Amount spent to date, valued at billing rate rather than at raw cost	What the project has spent
3 · Variance	Revenue minus Effort	The live margin. Negative means effort is outrunning revenue
4 · Effort Performance Index	Revenue divided by Effort	Above 1.0 is healthy. Below 1.0 means effort is outrunning revenue
5 · Profit	The fee minus the EAC at today’s pace	A projection rather than a record

The calculations behind the columns

Variance = Revenue − Effort

Effort Performance Index = Revenue ÷ Effort

EAC = spend to date + the estimate to complete

Profit = the fee − the EAC at today’s pace

Estimate to complete, pace holds = spend ÷ the percentage truly complete

Days to cash = Unbilled Days + Receivable Days

Oakhaven at the data date

Illustrative training data on the locked Oakhaven fee. A single phase can read red while the project total reads green.

Column	Project total	Construction Documents
Effort % Complete	60.5714	81.6327
Revenue % Complete	61.4286	61.2245
Effort Performance Index	1.0142	0.7500
Variance	12,000.00	−100,000.00
Variance At Completion	18,666.67	−163,333.33

Re-forecast on three triggers

A forecast stops being true at identifiable moments. The course names three.

Variance runs negative two reviews in a row. One bad week is noise. Two is a trend with a cause.
A phase review, a priced scope change, or a staffing change. Each one changes the work the remaining fee has to cover.
Percent complete gets re-based. A new percentage against the same spend produces a new estimate at completion.

The four recovery levers, in order

The order matters more than the list. Each lever changes what the next one has to do. The course lists hope as the fifth item and names it the one non-lever.

Order	Lever	What it changes
1	Close the open decision	Stops the rework that is generating the spend
2	Restaff to the rate	Puts the remaining work at the rate the fee supports
3	Re-scope the remaining work to the remaining fee	Matches what is left to do to what is left to spend
4	Price what changed	Recovers the scope the client added after the fee was built

Days to cash, in two halves

Unbilled dollars convert to cash by being invoiced. Aged receivables convert by being collected.

UNBILLED DAYS

Measures. How long earned work waits before it reaches an invoice.

Range. On the rhythm, single digits to about 15. Drifting, 45 or more.

Oakhaven. Construction Documents carries 21. Five tasks over 30 days total $39,950.00.

Converts by. Invoicing, the fastest cash the firm can raise.

RECEIVABLE DAYS

Measures. How long a sent invoice waits before it is paid.

Oakhaven. 42.00 at the data date, with GRC-26-0142-008 at $31,200.00 and GRC-26-0142-006 at $14,600.00, $45,800.00 in total.

Converts by. Collection, on the ladder below.

DAYS TO CASH

Measures. Unbilled Days plus Receivable Days.

Span. Work to cash runs 60 to 90 days, against payroll every 14 days and $230k to $350k of float carried on roughly $115k earned per month.

Owner. The first half belongs to the project manager.

The AR escalation ladder

The project manager holds ultimate responsibility for AR collection. Read the BST aging report and the collection notes before contacting the client.

Days outstanding	What happens	Who acts
Day 1	Invoice tracked in BST.	Project Manager
Day 7 to 10	Receipt check with the client.	Project Manager
31 to 45	Friendly check-in. AP follow-up. Document in BST.	Accounting contacts the client’s Accounts Payable department beginning at 31 days
46 to 90	Day 45, the specific ask. Day 60, the call, with the PIC aware.	Project Manager
91 to 120	Formal engagement once an invoice passes 90 days	Practice Leader
Over 120	Reviews the invoice and determines whether additional escalation or legal action is appropriate	Executive Leadership

On a live project

What to do

Chase consultant pre-bills ahead of the 20th.
Check the pre-bill against all four criteria before the 25th.
Resolve a questioned line inside Grace, then release the invoice.
Send the invoice by the 7th.
Read Variance beside the Index at phase level as well as project level.
Add Unbilled Days to Receivable Days and write the total down.

What to watch for

A phase Index below 1.0 sitting under a project total above 1.0.
Variance negative two reviews in a row.
Work that became billable more than 30 days ago sitting in Aged Unbilled.
A retainage percentage that does not match the signed agreement.
A consultant invoice that arrives after the review has opened.

What to avoid

Releasing a line no one inside Grace has verified.
Reading the project total alone.
Forwarding the aging report to accounting and considering it handled.
Working the recovery levers out of order.
Treating hope as a lever.
Working to the 20th without confirming it against the executed consultant agreement.

Bring last month’s pre-bill and the date the invoice actually went out. The Session Overview lists what the course never supplied, including the Bills inquiry the whole review runs on.