Automated Billing Portal

Industry: Construction and infrastructure project management consulting
Organisation: Australian consultancy serving government infrastructure programs
Solution type: Custom billing portal and systems integration
Core technology: Angular, .NET microservices, Azure, WorkflowMax API, Xero API, Power BI
Engagement: Agile delivery in two week sprints

Headline resultMonth end invoicing reduced from days to hours

Overview

A project management consultancy working on major transport, aviation and construction programs was invoicing government clients through spreadsheets and manual edits. We built a billing portal with accounting software integration that pulls timesheets from WorkflowMax, applies complex rate rules, routes invoices through approval and publishes them to Xero, all with a full audit trail.

The Business Problem

Consultants recorded time in WorkflowMax, but it could not produce the detailed PDF invoices with timesheet breakdowns that government clients expected. Staff adjusted hours by hand, merged data in spreadsheets and chased approvals by email.

Complex rate rulesNo support for consultant, project and category rate structures
No approval workflowNo structured approval workflow for project managers and directors
Profitability blind spotsLimited visibility of project profitability and utilisation
Manual Xero reconciliationManual reconciliation in Xero

Our Solution

Using our custom software development services, we built a billing portal that automatically creates draft invoices from WorkflowMax timesheets, staff, project and client data. A configurable rate engine handles consultant rates, contract rates and category rates. Each invoice moves through draft, project manager review, director approval and release by the admin team, with every action logged.

Approved invoices are generated as PDFs, stored securely and published to Xero for reconciliation. Power BI dashboards give leadership visibility of profitability, utilisation, cost against billable revenue and cash flow forecasts.

Timesheets pulled from WorkflowMax
Rate engine builds a draft invoice
Managers review and approve
PDF invoice generated and stored
Published to Xero for reconciliation

Automated billing portal integrating WorkflowMax and Xero

Key Features

Automatic invoice drafts from WorkflowMax timesheets
Configurable billing rate engine
Four stage approval workflow with role based permissions
Full audit trail of every invoice action
PDF invoices with detailed timesheet breakdowns
Secure central invoice storage
Automatic publishing to Xero
Retry and reprocessing for failed synchronisation
Power BI dashboards for profitability and utilisation
Single sign on with Microsoft 365

Outcomes

Month end invoicing cycle cut from days to hours
More accurate invoices because all data flows from a single source
Spreadsheet workarounds removed
Stronger governance through approvals and audit history
Real time visibility of project performance for leadership

Technology Stack

Frontend1 technology

Angular

Backend3 technologies

.NET

Microservices

Architecture1 technology

MACH Architecture

Cloud4 technologies

Azure App Service

Azure SQL Database

Azure Blob Storage

Azure Key Vault

Identity2 technologies

Microsoft Entra ID

Microsoft 365

Integrations3 technologies

WorkflowMax

Xero

REST APIs

Reporting1 technology

Power BI

Delivery1 technology

Azure DevOps

Who This Solution Suits

This approach suits consulting, engineering, architecture and professional services firms that track time in a practice management tool but need more advanced invoicing, approvals or reporting than it provides out of the box.