Playbook, marketing agency
A client has the invoice open and is asking about one line
An agency invoice carries two kinds of money that have nothing to do with each other. The fee is what the agency charges for its time. The media spend is the client's own budget passing through on its way to a platform. Add a line for work that went past the hours allowance and you have the three things every billing query is really about.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for billing and invoices holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- Most of the value on the invoice is often not the agency's income at all. Budget routed through the agency's account appears as a charge and reads as a fee, and a client comparing this month with last is usually comparing two spend levels rather than two prices.
- The retainer is an allowance of hours rather than a subscription, so an invoice can be identical for six months and then carry an overage line, and the argument that follows is about whether the extra work was ever agreed.
- The rollover rule decides whether last month's unused hours are still available, and it is the clause in the agreement least likely to have been read by the person querying the bill.
- Behind almost every line query is the scope conversation nobody had at the time, which means the honest answer points at the statement of work and the change request rather than at the arithmetic.
How it arrives
- why is the spend on the invoice higher than the budget we agreed
- what is the extra hours line on this months bill
- does the retainer fee include what we paid the platforms
- we never signed off this change request
- can the media spend be billed separately from your fee
- do unused hours from last month carry over
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The invoice, explained line by line | Which lines are the agency's fee, which are budget passing through to platforms, and which are third party costs such as licences, stock imagery or print. A client who cannot tell those apart reads the total as your price. |
|---|---|
| The hours allowance and the rollover rule | How many hours the retainer buys, what becomes of hours not used, whether they expire at the month end or carry, and how an overrun is priced. Write the rule out, because the version in the agreement is a sentence nobody finished reading. |
| How out of scope work becomes billable | The change request: who raises it, what it has to say, who signs it, and how the price is agreed before anybody starts. Where this exists only as custom, every overage line is a dispute waiting to happen. |
| Where a billing query goes, and what carries on while it is open | The billing address, who answers it, how long it takes, and whether delivery pauses while a query is open. Clients withhold payment mostly because nobody told them there was a faster route. |
The reply
Our invoices separate our fee from any media budget billed through us, and third party costs sit on their own lines, which the billing page sets out [1]. A line above the usual monthly figure is normally hours beyond the allowance, and those are raised as a change request before the work starts, so there should be one on file for it [2]. I cannot open your invoice or check what was signed. Send the invoice number to the billing address on that page and it will be gone through with you.
It names the two kinds of money in the opening sentence, because a client staring at a large total usually assumes the agency charged it. Pointing at the change request rather than defending the line moves the conversation onto a document both sides can read. And it says plainly that nothing here can see the invoice, which stops the query dying in a chat window.
Where it stops
The trigger. The client quotes a figure, an invoice number or a month, or says a charge was never agreed.
I cannot see your invoice or the change requests behind it, and a charge you did not agree to needs somebody who can look at both. Send me your name, an email and the invoice number and our finance contact will come back to you.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never explain a specific line on a specific invoice, because the assistant cannot see the invoice and a wrong explanation becomes the client's position.
- Never say media spend is included in the fee, or that a fee covers a platform charge, unless the published terms say exactly that.
- Never agree that hours have rolled over, been waived, or will be credited.
- Never suggest a client hold payment while a query is open, since that is a commercial decision with contractual consequences.
Questions
- Clients query the same overage line every month. What fixes it?
- Publishing the allowance and the rollover rule in plain words, and raising a change request before the work rather than after it. The assistant can then quote both, and a call becomes a two line answer.
- Can it tell a client what they were charged?
- No. It has no access to any billing or accounting system and cannot look an account up, so anything about a specific invoice ends in a handover. What it absorbs is the general question about how the invoice is built, which is most of them.
- Should the media spend line be explained on the website at all?
- Yes, because it is the number that shocks people. A short note saying budget billed through the agency is the client's money on its way to a platform, and is not part of the fee, prevents the conversation that opens with why did you charge us this.
Keep reading
- Everything for a marketing agencyService definitions and engagement terms convert. A price quoted for work nobody has scoped is the trap on an agency site.
- Handling billing and invoices in generalInvoice copies, tax numbers, purchase order references. Nearly all of it is account specific, so the honest handling is process plus a clean handover.
- What happens between signing and the first campaign going liveAccess to the client's own accounts, the brand assets, the measurement check, and why month one produces less than month two.
- Delete my data, sent to a company the sender has never heard ofThe stranger writing to an agency is usually in a client's list rather than the agency's, and the assistant cannot even say whose.
- Sorting an agency complaint before anybody answers itA late report is a service complaint. A campaign that overspent a client budget is not, and the assistant has to handle the second differently.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.