Recover Unbilled Out-of-Scope Work
Work that falls outside the engagement is found while it is still billable, and the fee note is prepared for a partner to approve.
The problem
On fixed fees, extra work arrives one favour at a time. A question by email, an extra schedule, a call that turns into an hour.
In Ignition's 2022 survey of UK accountants, 32% of clients were not billed for extra work, costing firms an average of £69,957 a year.
By the time anyone reviews the job, the work is history and nobody wants the conversation.
What the system does
- 01Reads client email and job activity for work that sits outside the engagement.
- 02Matches what was asked for against what the engagement letter covers.
- 03Drafts the fee note, with the work and dates set out, for a partner to approve.
- 04Flags repeat patterns, so they reach the next fee review rather than recurring.
The numbers it moves
- Recovery rate
- Billed fees over work done, taken from the same report before and after.
- Write-offs
- Measured at job level, so the change is visible per engagement rather than in aggregate.
- Margin
- Recovered fees carry no extra delivery cost, so they land almost entirely in margin.
How it is proven
Every flagged item is logged. Value counts only once a partner approves it as billable, so the reported figure is fees your practice agreed to raise.
Questions
- Does it read all our client email?
- It reads the mailboxes you connect, and only for the purpose of spotting work outside the engagement. Access is limited to what the system needs, every action is logged, and the data stays in your own cloud account.
- Who decides what gets billed?
- A partner, every time. The system prepares the fee note and the evidence behind it. Nothing is sent to a client without approval.
- What if a client disputes the extra fee?
- The fee note sets out the work and the dates it happened, drawn from your own records. Most disputes come from fees raised months later with nothing behind them, which is the situation this removes.
Would this pay for itself in your practice?
A 30-minute call to talk through how your practice runs this work today, and whether an Audit is worth doing. If it is not, we will say so.
Last updated 29 September 2026