Work in Progress (WIP)
Work in progress is a job you have finished or part finished that has no invoice yet. It is value you created. It becomes money only after you invoice it and the client pays.
What it means
A job moves through three rough states: not started, in progress and invoiced. Work in progress is everything between the work happening and an invoice existing. Examples are a finished repair with no invoice sent and a multi-day job that is two-thirds done. Another is materials bought and installed but not yet billed.
It matters because it is easy to feel further ahead than you are. A pile of finished, unbilled jobs looks like progress. You did the work. But for cash, nothing has happened yet. With no invoice, the payment clock has not started.
The fix is a smaller gap, not a bigger effort. The shorter the time between a job finishing and an invoice going out, the less work in progress builds up. It can stay a hidden pile you find on a bad week. Or it can be a short list you clear every few days. That is the difference between a business that feels behind and one that does not.
You finish a $600 repair on Tuesday but do not invoice it until the next Monday. For those six days, that $600 is work in progress. The work is done and real. It is worth nothing to your bank account until the invoice goes out.
Counting a finished but unbilled job as money you already have, and spending against it. It stays work in progress until an invoice exists and is paid.
See also
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