Talking with some customers it seems that some of them have what I would call “Billing Reticence”, an unnatural and unhealthy aversion to getting their bills out. Since PositiveWare has eliminated the technical and administrative difficulty of putting a bill together there has to be something else at play that keeps users from getting their bills out.

Here are some thoughts and tips to make you more comfortable with billing.

Before anything, now (I mean right now) get your calendar out and make an appointment with yourself to do your bills. Keep the appointment.

A new freelancer coming from a job is likely to be a little uncomfortable with the change in the magnitude of dollars at play. In the extreme case of a client who buys all your time, and perhaps that of one or more subs, you could be looking at an invoice that is ten times your last paycheck. So how do you handle a big invoice? For starters, the same as a small one.
-Make sure it is accurate, for rate, time and time period.
-Make sure it has the level of detail the client expects. (Don’t know what the client expects? Ask them. They will appreciate the question.)
-Including expenses? Make sure to supply supporting documentation. Here’s how to track expenses in PositiveWare.
-Make sure to include payment information (who to pay) and term (when to pay)

Ok, so the invoice is together. Why not send it?
-Is the client going to be surprised? This is never good. The best way to handle this is to call the client ahead of time, with a bit of a warning. Nobody likes surprises.
-Do you not deserve to be paid? A few of us out there are so self-deprecating and self-effacing that we don’t really think we deserve it. A little bibliotherapy is in order. Try The Virtue of Selfishness or perhaps Free Agent Nation.
-Don’t know how to handle the money? Solve this problem when you have the money, because until you send the bill you don’t have the problem.
-Think you’re above handling money, or in it for the art? Seriously? Get a job at the Post Office and pursue art as a hobby, because this probably won’t work for you.

Next Time: I hate tracking time, so my bills are late.

The dismantling of the traditional newspaper model continues. Today the Denver Post announced that the Business section would now be part of the local coverage section Denver and the West. Apparently advertising support had dropped to where the section no longer made sense on a stand alone basis. Ironically the news was reported first in the Denver Business Journal, which seems to be doing fine with its hyper-local coverage.

Rockies Venture Club announced today that it had secured free and discounted PositiveWare subscriptions for paid up RVC members as an additional member benefit.

PositiveWare is a web application that is used to track time, manage projects, and create budgets and bills. The PositiveWare user base falls into the exact same category as RVC members: management teams and small professional services firms.

“PositiveWare provides the increased collaboration, alignment and accountability that every small business needs to be successful, and we are thrilled to be part of the RVC success story,” said Charles Von Thun, President, PositiveWare.

Under the terms of the agreement PositiveWare will offer RVC members five free users and a discounted rate on additional users. Because the majority of RVC members are startups and small professional service firms, RVC expects most members to be able to take advantage of this benefit at no cost.

“RVC helps create Colorado success stories. This important new benefit for our members is part of our ongoing commitment to make the latest information and technology available to our members to make sure they are successful,” said Maita Lester, Executive Director, RVC.

About Rockies Venture Club
Rockies Venture Club (RVC) was one of the first non-profit organizations in the country to help entrepreneurs launch and manage high-growth potential companies. Founded in 1985, RVC is the Rocky Mountain Region’s premier networking organization that connects entrepreneurs, service professionals, investors, venture capitalists and other funding sources. More information is available at www.rockiesventureclub.org

About PositiveWare
Founded in 2003, PositiveWare Gives Work Meaning™ by providing a single environment for workers to know what they are working on, why it is important, and how they are doing. Functionally this includes collaboration, time tracking, project management, billing, and budgeting. In addition to the web application that is a hybrid of performance management and project management, the company provides professional services including executive coaching, management consulting and IT development. More information is available at www.positiveware.com.

For More Information Contact

Maita Lester, Executive Director, RVC
(303) 831-4174

Charles Von Thun, President, PositiveWare LLC
(303) 293-2200

December 24 saw the demise of eWorks, formerly ProSaavy. The ProSaavy concept was to take advantage of the power of the internet to connect professional services providers with companies needing their services. But it was a Web 1.0 concept, relying on big fees from service providers and placement fees from buyers. Those revenues appeared to be used to drive heavy web advertising, also a Web 1.0 concept. A quick glance at eLance shows what a 2.0 version of eWorks looks like.

In the end eWorks appears to have succumbed to a class action suit filed by providers dissatisfied with what they were getting. For more detail see the DBJ article.

When I explain to people what PositiveWare does, they automatically assume that my primary market should be lawyers. Lawyers are (in)famous for tracking their time in 6 minute intervals, and should naturally be PositiveWare users.

But up to this moment we haven’t pursued the legal market because in my experience attorneys don’t do a lot of project planning or budgeting. This has always been contrary to how firms are run, where the goal is billable hours, not client outcomes. In other words, the meaning of legal work comes to be dominated by the billable hour.

A recent article in the Denver Post has made me rethink this assumption. The article notes that there has been a significant backlash against aggressive hourly billing by legal firms. More corporations are looking for fixed price billing from legal firms, either on a retainer basis or a project basis.

The recent addition of budgeting to PositiveWare makes it the perfect tool for managing legal work. Lawyers can track time, which is nice, but more importantly set client expectations with budgets and understand how they are doing against those budgets.

I have good friends at one of the firms mentioned in the article, Holme Roberts Owen.

With the release of PW PSA 2.0.5 today PositiveWare now makes it easy to generate bills in seconds. This powerful new functionality includes the ability to store an endless number of rate schedules, apply these rate schedules to clients (including different rates for different elements of work done for the same client, and adjust the bills. The most onerous part of running your business has been reduced to a matter of a few clicks.

1. Improves the bill adjustment interface to enable users to add or subtract fees at the client, project, or task level
2. Adds the “Finalize Bill” button to permanently lock a bill and save the corresponding rate card with it.
3. Adds the “Stop Time Tracking” button to enable the billing manager to stop time tracking for any particular client for the billing period prior to finalizing the bill.

See the release notes here.

Once you have time, it seems obvious that you should be able to apply rates to it. This release begins the full development of billing in PositiveWare. 2.0.4:

1. Adds billing tab and workflow for creating bill for every client
2. Adds rate manager to create unlimited number of rates per user
3. Adds ability to make any time entry billable or non-billable.

To read more see the release notes here.

One of the coolest technnologies I saw at the PRSA International Conference was Critical Mention. They offer the ability to search and collect television news hits, and share the results in various ways. While the license is a bit pricey, when spread across a number of clients it seems quite reasonable.

They offered a free trial, so if your clients want to know more about their news media coverage, this might be a great value add. See their site at Critical Mention.

We’ve added a new feature and tweaked some reports. PW PSA 2.0.3

• Adds Document Manager to add documents to a Client, Project, or Task
• Enhances Time Tracking Detail for Project Report
• Creates the ability to set the first day of the week

To read more see the release notes here.