Billing Cycle
A billing cycle is how often you send an invoice: per job, weekly, or monthly. Pick the one that matches how your work finishes. Then unbilled work cannot pile up quietly between invoices.
What it means
Per-job billing suits work with a clear finish line, such as a repair, an install or a one-off visit. You invoice as soon as the job is done. Weekly billing suits ongoing or multi-visit work. Waiting for one "done" moment would mean carrying weeks of unbilled labour. Monthly billing suits a recurring arrangement, like a maintenance round or a retainer. The client expects one invoice for the whole month, not one per visit.
Trouble starts when you bill on autopilot instead of by design. You stay with per-job invoicing for work that has no clean finish line. Jobs then pile up as unbilled work in progress, with no regular billing schedule at all.
A gardener does weekly mowing rounds and bills monthly. One invoice covers four visits. Invoicing each mow separately would be slower. A one-off gutter repair for a different client gets its own invoice the day the job finishes. There is nothing recurring to wait for.
Never choosing a billing cycle and invoicing "whenever I get to it". That is how a backlog of finished, unbilled jobs builds up with nobody deciding it should.
See also
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