Contents
- Why extra work disappears into the flat fee
- What you need to check one client
- The method: one client, every line marked F, E or B
- An example from practice, anonymised
- How to record time so that nothing disappears
- How an agent runs the same check, with approval
- The first step: a single client
- Frequently asked questions
Key points
- Extra work rarely disappears through carelessness. It disappears because time tracking does not record whether an hour is flat fee or extra.
- Catch-all entries such as “miscellaneous” and vague texts such as “various clarifications” turn extra work into flat-fee hours, because there is no record to support a separate invoice.
- The check starts with one client: list the contractual scope, put the time-tracking export beside it and mark every line F (flat fee), E (extra) or B (borderline).
- A named person decides on everything marked E or B before the next invoice goes to the client.
- A separate service type for extra work stops the same hours sliding back into the flat fee next year.
Why extra work disappears into the flat fee
Every recorded hour ends up in one of two places: inside the flat fee, or on an invoice for extra work. In practice, the work itself rarely decides which. The text in the time-tracking system decides, along with whether anyone puts the contract beside it.
Whoever writes the invoice needs a record for extra work: a line that says what was done and for whom. The flat fee needs no record at all. When the record is missing, the hour stays where none is required. This has little to do with a careless team. The gap opens in four places that look the same in almost every office.
| Cause | What it looks like in the export | Consequence |
|---|---|---|
| No column for flat fee or extra | Client, date, duration and text, but no field for how the hour is billed | Someone later has to guess from the text whether it was extra |
| Catch-all entries | Service types such as “miscellaneous”, “general” or “administration” (“Diverses” in many Swiss systems), often with several activities in one line | The whole line counts as flat fee, including the part that was extra |
| Vague descriptions | “Various clarifications”, “phone”, “emails”, “meeting” or an internal abbreviation | Nobody can match the line to a contracted service, so it stays in the flat fee |
| Contract and export kept apart | The mandate contract sits in the client file, the service list in an annex, the export in the software | When invoicing, nobody compares the lines with the contract one by one |
Each of these is harmless on its own. Together they let extra work land in the flat fee without a decision. In most offices nobody knows how much that is, because checking by hand takes weeks and so it never happens.
What you need to check one client
Pick one client, ideally the one where you most suspect the work takes more time than the flat fee covers. One client is enough to see whether there is a leak and where it sits.
- Your mandate contract with every annex and amendment. Services are often listed in an annex or the general terms, rarely on page one.
- The time-tracking export for the same client covering a full year, as Excel or CSV, with date, person, service type, text and duration.
- One uninterrupted sitting. You do not need the team for this step yet.
The method: one client, every line marked F, E or B
The logic is the same as in the free Flat-Fee Leak Check, which adds a keyword list and a worksheet. You need five steps.
- 01List the contractual scopeCopy three lists from the contract: services inside the flat fee, services named as extra with their own rate, and services that are expressly excluded. Note the clause number next to each one.
- 02Filter and sort the exportFilter on “miscellaneous” and anything that works the same way at your firm, such as “general” or internal time. Sort by duration, longest lines first. That is where most of the hours sit.
- 03Mark every lineRead the text, not the service type. F: the contract names the service inside the flat fee. E: the contract names it as extra, or not at all. B: the contract allows both, or the text does not say enough. A line with two activities gets two marks.
- 04Approve E and BEverything marked E or B crosses the desk of the responsible person before the next invoice goes out. That person decides line by line: bill it, clear it with the client first, or leave it in the flat fee on purpose. Their initials beside it are the approval.
- 05Add up the totalsTotal the hours for each mark and note what you want to clear with the client. You now hold three figures for this client instead of a hunch.
An invented line from a bookkeeping mandate shows how it works. Service type “miscellaneous”, text: “various clarifications, compiled documents for formation of subsidiary, recorded payments”.
| Part of the line | What the contract says | Mark |
|---|---|---|
| Recorded payments | Payment processing is named as a service inside the flat fee | F |
| Documents for formation of subsidiary | The contract names only the existing company; forming a new one is not agreed | E |
| Various clarifications | The text does not say what they were about | B |
One line, three answers. Without a split, the whole duration lands in the flat fee. An E is not yet an invoice, though: whether you bill it depends on the contract and on the conversation with the client. That is the subject of Flagged is not billable.
An example from practice, anonymised
A fiduciary and property management firm wanted to know how much recorded work sat inside its flat fees. Two mandate contracts were checked against six time-tracking exports, using the same logic as above. By hand, the work had been estimated at four weeks; with the review lane it was done in one day.
Afterwards, the firm wanted a whole client mandate run through the same check. Your own figures only appear once you run your own check. In francs, a worked example with round assumptions: a client has 100 hours a year under “miscellaneous”, the check finds 10 hours marked E, and your internal rate is CHF 150.-. That is CHF 1'500.- worth of hours a year for this one client, before the borderline lines are decided.
How to record time so that nothing disappears
The check shows you which words were missing from the lines. Only then is an instruction to the team worth giving, because now it can be specific. Four rules cover most of it.
- A column or service type for how the hour is billed: flat fee or extra, decided when the time is recorded and not three months later at invoicing.
- One activity per line. Writing three things into one line turns the extra service inside it into a flat-fee hour.
- Name the object: which company, which property, which damage claim. “Various”, “open items” or “correspondence” on their own are not enough.
- Anything the contract names as extra gets its own service type, for example conciliation hearings, first letting or company formation. A note such as “bill separately” in the free text gets lost at invoicing.
New software is usually not needed. Most time-tracking systems let you create your own service types. Once a month, the responsible person goes through the lines marked B before the invoices go out. That takes minutes, as long as it happens every month.
How an agent runs the same check, with approval
Checking one client by hand is feasible. Checking every client every month is not, which is why it does not happen. An agent does the same work by the same rules, written in plain language. It reads the contract and every line of the export, not a sample.
| Step | By hand | With an agent, you approve |
|---|---|---|
| Contractual scope | Copying service lists from the contract and annexes | Extracts the services, with clause numbers, from the contract, annexes and amendments |
| Marking lines | Reading the longest lines and estimating the rest | Proposes F, E or B for every line, with its reasoning and the clause it relies on |
| Borderline cases | Often left undecided inside the flat fee | Arrive as open questions with the responsible person |
| Evidence | Initials on the worksheet | Replay log: which line, which rule, who approved it and when |
Nothing is silently reclassified, and no invoice goes out without approval. Responsibility stays with you in any case: the Swiss fiduciary association TREUHAND|SUISSE points out that fiduciaries remain responsible to their clients for carrying out the mandate with due care, even when AI does part of the work. The legal basis is Art. 398 of the Swiss Code of Obligations. How an agent works in general is explained in AI in the fiduciary office, explained simply.
Once the check runs every month, the question changes from how much has disappeared to how much of it you want to bill. When agents finish routine work faster, the fee question shifts too, as Hourly rate or flat fee when AI saves time explains.
The first step: a single client
Choose one client, pull a year of exports and put the contract beside it. Work through the longest lines under “miscellaneous” first, using the Flat-Fee Leak Check as your template. After one sitting you know whether you have a leak and which words are missing from the lines.
If the check should run for every client, Grow Amplified starts with an audit: one week, a process map and the cost of each process in your own hours. How the steps follow one another is described under Approach.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to check every client at once?
No. One client is enough to see whether there is a leak and which words are missing from the lines. Take the client where you most strongly feel the flat fee does not cover the work.
Can I bill hours marked as extra retrospectively?
That depends on the contract and on what was agreed with or announced to the client. If in doubt, clarify it with your legal adviser. Often the check is mainly the basis for the next conversation: what appears separately on the invoice from now on, or whether the flat fee is adjusted.
Our contract has a fee cap rather than a flat fee. Does this still apply?
Yes. The question stays the same: whether an hour belongs to a service the contract names. With a fee cap, the check also shows which hours count against the cap even though they fall outside the agreed scope.
Do I need new time-tracking software?
Usually not. Most systems let you create your own service types or an extra field. For the check itself, an Excel export is enough.
How do clients react when extra work suddenly appears on the invoice?
That depends on whether it was announced. With the totals from the check, you can show in advance which work fell outside the agreed scope. A record for each line carries more weight in that conversation than the feeling that a client takes too much time.
Does an agent read my clients' data for this?
It reads the contract and the time-tracking export for that client, nothing else. At Grow Amplified, client data is processed in Switzerland, a data processing agreement is signed before the first access, and every access is logged.
15 years in banking and consulting, in transformation and finance operations. Today he builds review lanes with Grow Amplified: agents read and reconcile, a person approves, and a replay log records who decided what.