How to track approvals, invoices, and payments for agency work

Finding extra work is only the beginning. A recovery process loses value when a case is approved but never invoiced, invoiced but not collected, or silently overwritten when a partial payment arrives.

Use separate states

Keep detected, human-verified, decided, approved, invoiced, partially collected, collected, goodwill, and false-positive states distinct. “Approved” does not mean “paid”, and an estimated value is not a ledger balance.

Record immutable events

For each invoice or collection event, retain the author, date, reference, amount, currency, period, and source. Corrections should be documented adjustments or counter-entries, not a rewrite of the original payment. This makes a review explainable months later.

Handle partial payments

approved amount = 1,800 USD
payment 1 = 1,000 USD
payment 2 = 800 USD
collected total = 1,800 USD
remaining balance = 0 USD

Reject an over-collection unless an explicit adjustment explains it. If only the first payment is recorded, the case remains partially collected and the remaining balance stays visible.

Review the outstanding balance

Weekly review should surface the next action: request approval, issue the invoice in the accounting system, follow up on an unpaid balance, or write off the remainder with a reason. Revenue Recovery OS records these steps but does not send an invoice or initiate a payment.