Projected Billings Calculation
Projected Billings answers a simple but valuable question: based on where things stand right now, what do you expect to bill next? It's calculated as:
WIP + Unbilled Expenses + Unbilled Services + Unbilled Consultant Pass-Throughs = Projected Billings
The Calculation
Projected Billings starts with WIP — the gross value of work completed but not yet billed — and adds three additional categories that haven't yet made it onto an invoice:
- Unbilled Expenses — billable expenses logged against the project that haven't been invoiced yet.
- Unbilled Services — billable services that haven't been invoiced yet.
- Unbilled Consultant Pass-Throughs — consultant costs you'll be passing through to the client, not yet billed.
Adding these to WIP gives you a complete picture of everything that's ready — or nearly ready — to go out on your next invoice.
Why It Matters
Most firms can look at hours logged or fees billed to date, but far fewer can see, in real time, what's actually coming next across all their active projects. Projected Billings rolls up across your entire project list, giving you a forward-looking number for a given period — this month, this quarter — rather than just a look backward at what's already been invoiced.
This is useful for cash flow planning, staffing decisions, and simply knowing what to expect before you sit down to run invoices.
Best Practice
Keep WIP current — particularly Percent Complete on fixed fee phases — and log expenses, services, and pass-throughs as they occur rather than batching them at invoice time. Projected Billings is only as accurate as the inputs feeding it, so the more current your project data is day to day, the more useful this figure becomes for planning ahead.
Summary
Projected Billings is calculated as WIP plus Unbilled Expenses, Unbilled Services, and Unbilled Consultant Pass-Throughs. It gives you a forward-looking estimate of what you expect to bill next, across all active projects, based on the current state of completed-but-unbilled work.