What a findings page actually looks like

What we found

A placement rate can be changed at any point in an assignment, and the change is saved on the placement record. The billing routine does not read the rate from the placement. It reads a rate that was copied onto the assignment when the assignment was created, and nothing updates that copy.

The result is that every mid-assignment rate change is invoiced at the old rate until somebody notices. Of the 41 assignments we sampled, 6 had a rate change during the period and 4 of those were billed at the superseded rate.

Why it happens

The copied rate was added for a reporting requirement three years ago and became the field the billing routine used, because it was the field that was always populated. There is no validation preventing the two from diverging, and no report that compares them.

What it costs

• Under-billing on any increase, which is written off rather than chased once the client has been invoiced.
• Credit notes and re-issues on any decrease, at roughly 40 minutes of finance time each.
• A slow erosion of client trust in the invoice, which shows up later as longer payment cycles.

What fixing it involves

1. Make the placement rate effective-dated, so a change carries the date it applies from rather than overwriting history.
2. Point the billing routine at the effective rate for the period being billed, not at the copied field.
3. Add an approval step on any change above a threshold you set, recorded against the placement.
4. Backfill the existing records and reconcile the last two billing periods so you start clean.
5. Retire the copied field once the reports that use it have been repointed.

What we would not do

We would not rebuild the billing routine. It is doing its job correctly with the wrong input. Replacing it would cost several times more, take the finance team through a re-test they do not need, and fix nothing that this item does not already fix.