Unbilled or double-billed end-user customers

The job shipped. Did anyone invoice it? And did anyone invoice it twice? This Watch checks both against your accounting system. In Settings → Workspace → Watches it sits under Financial as FI-2.

What it watches for

• A job that shipped or completed with no customer invoice after the number of days you set.
• Two open invoices billing the same job, the same purchase order, or the same amount.
• A customer invoice in accounting that differs from the quote or the order the customer was actually sent.

Why it matters

An unbilled job is the most expensive thing in a promo shop, because it is pure loss — the goods are gone, the supplier has been paid, and no one is going to ask you for an invoice they never received. It happens for ordinary reasons: the job shipped direct, the rep was on the road, the order was split across two shipments and only the first one got billed. A double-bill costs less money but more goodwill, and it is usually discovered by the customer.

This Watch books as Collected on the Found ledger — money that came in that would otherwise have been missed.

What it needs connected

• Required: your accounting system — QuickBooks Online. Scout cannot tell whether a job was invoiced without seeing the invoices.
• One required: a supplier feed or a mailbox — one of the two has to tell Scout that the job shipped.
• Helpful: a CRM.

What the point looks like

A point is one item Scout raises with the proof behind it. This one arrives in the Inbox as a recommendation:

The Tidal Tails cape order shipped six days ago and has no invoice — Tidal Tails · shipped Sept 7

Alpha Apparel shipped 480 capes to Tidal Tails on September 7. There is no customer invoice for this job in QuickBooks Online, and the unbilled window for this workspace is five days.

Evidence: the supplier shipping notice with its date · the absence of a matching invoice in QuickBooks Online · the quote the customer accepted, for the amount.

Prepared by Scout: an "invoice this" prompt with the job, the customer and the accepted amount together in one place.

The setting that tunes it

Unbilled after: 3 days, 5 days or 7 days. The default is 5. It is counted from the ship date on the supplier notice, not from the order date — so a long production run does not make every job look unbilled.

When it arrives

This is one of the launch-wave Watches. It is not raising points today — its row in Settings reads Coming soon. You can turn it on and set the unbilled window now, and the panel confirms that your choice is saved for when the Watch launches. We do not publish a date for it.

Good to know

• Scout never creates, edits or sends an invoice. The prompt gathers what you need to raise it yourself in your accounting system.
• Because accounting is required, this Watch shows under the Needs attention filter in Settings until QuickBooks Online is connected.
• Once the invoice appears in accounting, the point closes itself and Scout writes a receipt saying the evidence resolved it — so nobody invoices the job a second time.
• An invoice that exists but has not been paid is FI-1, receivables past due. This Watch is about invoices that do not exist yet.
• The mirror image on the cost side — a supplier billing you twice — is FI-4, invoice reconciliation.