Every line needs a reason, and the reason has to be in writing

What’s inside

• Why the narrative decides payment

  How a file is read by someone who was not there, and why an unexplained line is treated as an unjustified one.

• Every line with its reason

  Each invoice line traced to the log, the map or a photo, written as one plain sentence the reviewer can check.

• The job in date order

  A short day-by-day account of what was found, what was done and why, which answers most questions before they are asked.

• Reductions and the response

  Reading a reduction line by line, conceding what is fair, and answering the rest with the evidence already in the file.

• Supplements and changes in scope

  Documenting added work as it is discovered, so a supplement arrives with its justification rather than as a surprise.

• What a clean file is worth

  Days to payment, write-offs and office hours per file compared for clean and messy files, turned into a number the owner can see.

The measure it works from

Measure

Collected margin per job

Which means

What was actually paid on a job after every reduction, less the labor, equipment, materials and office time the job consumed, including the hours spent defending the invoice.

Compared against

The invoice total that was submitted.

Every figure in the document is illustrative, produced by one internally consistent model, and the document says so on its own cover.

The Invoice Narrative