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Do you use Project Managers?

Can anyone tell me if they use Project Manager's within their firms. Also, if you do, can you tell me if you have job descriptions for them and do your pm's handle any billing for their clients. We are trying to determine if our PM's need to be responsible for billing their clients or if we should hire in a billing person for this. Thanks for any input on this subject.

Lori Lutz, Controller Pennebaker.LMC

Yes - we use them. But we call them Jr. Account Managers. (We had better response with ad placement when we changed the title.) They are responsible for preparing the billing packet for submittal to accounting for invoicing.

The Account Manager is responsible for forecasting monthly what they will close and signing off the billing packet.

The Jr. AM also acts as project manager handling details in the office and responsible for project schedule.

Roxanne Cowan

Yes we have four production managers. They are in charge of putting estimates into C&P. We have our finance department do the billing.

Ed Miller

The Account Executives do the billing for each of their clients.

Laura Kennedy, Finance Manager Maier Advertising, Inc.

We have 2 PM's here at Marriott. I am the Operations Manager and handle all of the client billings as well as estimates.

Mary Elisa Norment eCommerce Design

We have a Production Manager; I'm not sure what your Project Manager's role is. Our Production Manager meets with vendors, does estimating, writes POs, etc. He is not involved in billing any clients. Let me know if you need anything else.

Krista Meisinger Anderson Partners

We have an Accounting Department who handles A/Ps and A/Rs. Account Executives and Account Supervisors approve the A/Rs. We have Production Managers write the POs (which must be on EVERY A/P or we do not pay it) to approve A/Ps. This creates a check-and-balance system. This also prevents one person from having the responsibility (which would/could open you up to embezzlement and fraud). If you require POs from the Project/Production Managers, one person should be able to handle A/Ps and A/R unless you are doing HUGE amounts. We are training a new person now who should be doing both (with someone else writing the checks) in a month or so. I was handling both myself for about a year. Production Managers here meet with/get bids from vendors, write POs, gather information for and enter estimates.

Tina Hawkins Fricks/Firestone Advertising

Who does your billing? How does the billing get passed off?

Lori Lutz

Do you or have found that by handling your billing in this manner opens up the door to any errors? Who hands over the billing to A/R when it is time to bill a client?

Lori Lutz

We do the exact same thing, with one difference. Accounting opens all invoices and stamps them with the date and a special approval stamp , then it is sent to the person who issued the P.O. It is their responsibility to approve the invoice. Even though a P.O. Is written, we need confirmation that the product/service has been received and was what was ordered. Once that is done, it is sent back to accounting for input into A/R. And Account Management reviews all billing in summary before sending to the client. Which is usually presented by the AE and not mailed.

Shelly Constantz

Our account dept generates, what we call, WIP. This is any time and expense for any job in the system. We forward this on to the AEs. They mark what they want and don't want to bill and return to accounting. Acctg then processes invoices from the AEs remarks. These invoices go back to the AEs one more time for them to review, before we actually finalize the invoices. My goal is to eliminate this step - I want to be able to process invoices and mail them once the AEs have reviewed it the first time.

Krista Meisinger Anderson Partners

We have a person in Accounting that specializes in billings/collections/job-chargeable AP and reviewing agency proposals to make sure we are covered from a cost perspective. They generate the billings from Clients & Profits, our accounting software, then the billings are reviewed by our production manager and account services team to ensure accuracy. We have a real-time billing system, so bills are accumulated and sent the day a project is complete (when we are not on a monthly retainer). The "client accountant" also prepares weekly summaries to management and account services on the progress of jobs, write-offs, credit holds, projected work for the agency, and staff utilization.

Although the system may sound time-consuming, errors with this system are rare, and we are less likely to lose money because of outside costs that were overlooked. Nothing will anger a client more than an incorrect invoice. I would be concerned with having production managers/project managers produce invoices - they often do not completely understand the sales tax issues and the interaction between costs in the system and outside costs that are still open on a purchase order.

We have both project managers and a production manager at our agency. Our project managers are used primarily for web projects, an area that most traditional production managers do not have expertise. They take on the role of a traditional production manager in estimating for web projects, and for keeping those jobs on track, as well as being expert in the technical issues that arise in the course of those projects. Our production manager is responsible for estimating external & internal costs, and issuing purchase orders (like other respondents, we require all outside costs to have a purchase order, and require that the production manager review any invoice received by a vendor without a p.o.#, or that varies from the specifications/cost of the p.o.)

Meghan Maze Words & Images, Inc.

We haven't found any errors. To what kind are you referring?

We bill clients as the A/Ps come in if the amount is not covered by pre-billing (done when the estimate was approved).

Tina Hawkins Fricks/Firestone Advertising

Do you find that there are errors on any of your invoices? Who passes off the billing to your finance department? Does your finance department research any and all discrepancies with the jobs?

Lori Lutz

Do you have hands on each of the jobs prior to billing? The reason I am asking this is, do you find that there is any doubt to error? Our PM's here are the closest to each of the accounts. Therefore, they would be the most likely candiate to catch any errors or the cost reports. I feel that if a billing person was to start billing each account there might be room for error as they don't have all of the knowledge of the job.

Lori Lutz

Yes we currently have two. They are a cross between a CSR and a production director. They are responsible for working with the client or with the outside sales person. They pretty much handle all aspects of a job from estimating, scheduling with production, tracking, issuing POs and COs, and notifying accounting when jobs are ready to bill. All billing is done through the accounting department. The Senior Project Director runs daily job meetings to discuss status of all projects. Project Directors work with management when issuing non routine estimates. They handle all project related correspondence.

Eric Amundson

I realize your message was posted some time ago, but I was particularly interested in your process of providing management reports. I am trying to incorporate useful and timely monthly management reports into "the way we do things here". You had mentioned progress of jobs, write offs, credoff projected work for the agency and staff utilization. I am very interested in learning how other agencies manage this process. Any thoughts or suggestions would be of great help!

Lorie Brewster