WIP / Unbilled Revenue Calculator

WIP revenue is money your agency has earned — by completing work — that you haven't yet sent an invoice for. The work is done; the cash hasn't been claimed. It sits between "delivered" and "billed" and creates a timing gap in your cash flow.

For hourly work: multiply uninvoiced hours by your bill rate. For fixed-price projects: estimate the percentage of the project complete, multiply that by the total fee, and subtract what you've already invoiced. Add all projects together to get your total WIP.

No. Accounts receivable is money invoiced but not yet paid — you've billed the client and are waiting for payment. WIP is money earned but not yet invoiced — you haven't billed yet. Both affect cash flow; they just sit in different stages of the billing cycle.

As a general rule, any earned work older than 30 days that hasn't been invoiced is a cash-flow risk. For retainer work, invoice on the same date each month. For project-based work, invoice at each completed milestone rather than at the end.

Usually a combination of: milestone billing at the end rather than as work is completed, scope additions that aren't tracked or billed, fixed-fee projects where completion is estimated late, and administrative delays in the invoicing step.

Because your P&L may show revenue recognised (when the work was done) while your bank account shows nothing. High WIP means the business looks fine on paper but is operationally cash-light — especially dangerous if a large client delays a payment.

Ascend tracks time against every project record as the work happens and generates invoices from those tracked hours. That means the gap between "work done" and "invoice sent" can be near-zero — you invoice directly from the time log without a separate admin step.