COMMERCIAL DELIVERY
Give fixed fees, milestones and retainers an explicit billing plan
Record the agreed project charges, review their acceptance and pass a traceable candidate into finance. Delivery progress and financial issuance remain separate decisions.
A budget is not yet an agreed charge
A project budget helps plan the engagement, but an invoice needs a more precise basis. Tsumira supports explicit project billing plans for fixed fees, milestone charges and defined retainer periods. Each plan records the commercial context and the charges that can be accepted. The project shows contracted, accepted and remaining amounts so delivery managers can distinguish the agreement from what has actually been accepted for billing.
Choose a plan that matches the agreement
A fixed plan describes the fee and can include a service period. A milestone plan associates amounts with the project’s milestones. A retainer plan defines a start month, number of periods and amount per period. The plan also records pricing basis and supported tax class. These are concrete charge structures, not a promise that every possible contract or country accounting requirement is already supported.
- Fixed-fee and service-period structure
- Amounts associated with project milestones
- Defined retainer periods and charge amounts
Accept a charge against its remaining amount
Authorized project management reviews the charge before accepting an amount. The workflow tracks cumulative accepted value and the remaining balance and rejects acceptance beyond the charge. A milestone charge requires its milestone to be reached. The request identifies the current plan version and expected accepted balance, helping prevent an older screen from accepting against assumptions that have changed.
- Open, partially accepted and fully accepted charges
- Milestone reached before milestone acceptance
- Version and balance checks on the decision
Hand finance a traceable candidate
An accepted charge produces a billing candidate with project, customer and any supported commercial-case context. Finance can then review the candidate and create the appropriate document through its own process. The current project billing bridge uses JPY and the supported Japanese tax model; country localization and additional currencies need their own implementation and validation. The project’s general currency field alone does not enable those capabilities.
- Project and customer references in the candidate
- Separate finance review and document issuance
- Current bridge scope explicit rather than inferred
A concrete workflow
Link the customer
Confirm the project’s actual CRM customer and supported commercial-case association.
Set the charge plan
Choose fixed, milestone or retainer structure and enter the agreed amounts and terms.
Review acceptance
Check delivery evidence, remaining balance and the current plan before accepting a charge amount.
Continue in finance
Review the resulting billing candidate and issue the financial document through the finance workflow.
An illustrative working example
Example: a phased implementation agreement
An implementation project has separate discovery and handover milestones. The billing owner assigns agreed amounts to those milestones. After discovery is marked reached, the owner accepts the corresponding charge, leaving the handover amount outstanding. Finance receives a candidate that identifies the project and customer. The team can see accepted versus remaining agreement value without treating milestone completion as a sent invoice.
Questions about this topic
Is accepting a charge the same as getting paid?
No. Acceptance releases a billing basis. Invoice issuance, payment and outstanding balance follow their own financial states.
Can I accept a milestone charge before the milestone is reached?
The supported workflow requires the associated milestone to be reached before accepting that milestone charge.
Does a retainer plan automatically send every invoice?
Do not assume that. It defines the relevant periods and charges; charge acceptance and financial document issuance remain controlled steps.
Does choosing a currency enable its local accounting rules?
No. Country localization, transaction currency and statutory reporting are separate capabilities. The current project-to-finance charge bridge is JPY-specific.
Explore connections around this workflow.
Ideas for intended connections. Check the actual availability, permissions and supported data for each app before using a scenario.
Quickbooks
Workflow concept: Plan a financial handover that distinguishes contracted, accepted and paid amounts.
Xero
Workflow concept: Review fixed or milestone charges before mapping them to external accounting context.
DocuSign
Workflow concept: Compare the agreed scope with proposed project charge amounts.