A professional firm has no yard and no till. It has hours, a promise, and a habit of calling both of those “fine”. The original Bookkeeping Centre copy said the wellbeing of a business depends on everyday decisions. In a practice — law, consulting, architecture, design, engineering — the everyday decision is whether to keep working on a matter that has not been billed, and whether the retainer you spent in week three still exists in week seven.

This is the file for that decision. It sits beside pricing, WIP and whether the job made money. It is not a legal-profession guide and it is not a trust-account manual. Lawyers have statutory trust rules this journal will not summarise from memory. Confirm your law society or regulator. Then keep a practice ledger a partner will read.

Time is the stock

If the firm sells time, time not recorded is stock thrown in the bin. A designer who “will remember on Friday” will remember the heroic hours and forget the emails. A weekly lock on timesheets is a control. A monthly plea is a eulogy.

Record against the matter, the phase, and the person. Record non-billable with the same honesty — business development, rework, admin — or your recovery rate will look like a moral failing instead of a mix problem.

Recovery is billed time versus time spent, at the rate you actually invoice, not the rate on the website. If a senior spends three hours and you bill one at a junior rate because you are shy, the file should show the shy. Pricing from a shy file produces more shy quotes.

Cost an hour the way a tradie does: wages + Super Guarantee + on-costs, over honest hours. SG is 12% from 1 July 2025 — confirm the ATO. Payday super from 1 July 2026 changes the cash week, not the cost. Owners who pay themselves a draw still need a notional rate on the matter, or every job looks rich and the family looks poor. Confirm Fair Work if the “contractor designer” is in fact an employee.

WIP that a partner will defend

Work in progress is unbilled time and, sometimes, unbilled disbursements, valued at something you can explain. Common management views: cost, standard rate, or realisable rate (what you actually expect to bill). Pick one. Write it down. Do not switch to realisable on a thin month and back to standard on a fat one.

Touch WIP every month in the close. Age it. WIP older than your billing cycle is either a bill you are avoiding or a write-off you are avoiding. Both are cash decisions. A six-month-old time entry is not an asset. It is a conversation.

Write-offs belong on a named line, by matter, by reason. “Courtesy” and “we will never recover this” are different. If write-offs are always the same partner, that is a pricing fact for the board pack.

Statutory revenue recognition may differ from the management view. Your accountant will say how the accounts must look. The management pack should still show “we have done this work and we have not billed it”. Label the two views. The original firm’s validated numbers meant that label existed.

Retainers and the money that is not yet yours

A retainer paid up front is usually a liability until you draw it. Put it on the balance sheet. Draw it when you issue a bill against it, under the engagement letter. If you draw it by “just transferring to the trading account because we are tight”, you have spent a client’s prepayment and you have lied to the cash forecast.

GST on taxable professional services is 10%. The week it belongs on the BAS depends on your reporting basis and whether the retainer is consideration for a supply yet. Confirm with the agent. Do not invent a “retainers are GST-free until we bill” rule because it felt tidy.

Top-up retainers need a trigger: WIP plus unbilled disbursements hitting a number, or a date. If nobody owns the trigger, the firm will do the work for free until a nasty invoice appears. That invoice will then sit in lockup.

Law practices and some other professions must hold certain money in trust. Trust is not a Xero account you named “Trust”. It is a regulated bank account and a regulated set of records. Mixing trust and trading is how careers end. This desk will not pretend a paragraph is compliance. If you are in a trust regime, your trust accountant and your regulator are the source. The practice ledger should only see the draw you are allowed to see.

Disbursements: yours, theirs, and the ones that vanish

A disbursement is money you pay because the matter requires it: a search, a filing fee, a contractor, travel you will recharge. Three treatments walk around the same office:

• paid by you, recharged at cost, sitting as a receivable
• paid by you, marked up, sitting as a bit of income
• paid from a client retainer or trust, never yours

Pick the treatment per type, write it down, and stop coding filing fees to “sundry”. Aged disbursements are lockup. A $2,400 expert report you have not billed is a loan to the client. Put it on the matter and on the weekly list.

GST credits on disbursements depend on whether the supply was to you or to the client. Confirm the current ATO approach with your agent when the amounts are material. Getting this wrong twice a year is how a BAS and a client invoice disagree.

Do not bury a contractor who is really a subcontractor on a design job in “consulting — general”. If you are also in construction, TPAR may still be watching. Confirm the ATO. The tradies essay is the cousin.

Lockup is the only dashboard that matters

Lockup in days is (WIP + debtors, sometimes + unbilled disbursements) ÷ average daily billings. You do not need a perfect formula. You need a number you compute the same way each month, and a target the partners agreed while they were sober.

A firm that bills in 60 and collects in 60 has four months of work trapped before cash arrives — longer if WIP is stale. That is why a handsome P&L and a terrified bank can coexist. The thirteen-week sheet should include billed debtors by promised week and should not include unbilled WIP unless you are willing to say out loud that the bill will go this Friday.

Collection is a weekly habit, not a year-end campaign. Aged receivables by partner, not by “the office”. The partner who will not chase is a credit policy. Write it down or change the partner.

Retainers, fixed fees and the job that is really a job

Not every engagement is hourly. A fixed-fee brand project is a job. It needs a quote, a scope, variations, and a WIP view that asks whether the remaining fee covers the remaining hours. Designers who “include a couple of extra concepts” without a variation are the professional-services version of a builder who tiles a second bathroom for free. Use the job-costing review.

Milestone invoices should match milestones you have actually reached. Raising the final invoice because the quarter needs revenue is a lockup problem wearing a suit.

The practice close

Monthly, after banks and the GST control account:

1. Timesheets locked. Missing time named by person, not by “the team”.
2. WIP aged, write-offs proposed, bills that should have gone listed.
3. Retainers reconciled: cash received, drawn, remaining, matters that are underwater versus their retainer.
4. Disbursements aged. Anything over a threshold billed or chased.
5. Debtors aged by partner. The conversation happens this week.
6. Lockup days versus last month. One sentence on why they moved.
7. Super, STP and, from 1 July 2026, payday-super timing. Professional firms are not exempt from the rhythm.
8. Three sentences for the partners: utilisation, lockup, the matter you will stop.

If the firm has a board or a reluctant oversight committee, this is the pack. They do not need every WIP line. They need lockup, cash, and the name of the matter that is a loan.

What the old desk would have interrupted

Optimism, again. Unbilled time that “is basically done”. A retainer that was spent twice. A disbursement sitting in the partner’s personal card. A GST code copied from a medical client who was GST-free onto a commercial advice file that is not.

A boutique bookkeeping firm in Rosebery used to be paid to make those interruptions boring. A part-time controller still can. A partner who will lock timesheets on Friday and bill on Monday can do a thinner version without a title.

The industry guides hub is the rest of the field notes. The financial control hub is the method. Record the time. Bill the WIP. Draw the retainer under the letter. Count the lockup. Then decide, with a number, whether to take the next matter. That is everyday business, which is what the Perth and Sydney desks were for.