Professional & recurring services

Retainers billed, collected, and chased by someone other than the partner.

Accountants, lawyers, IT companies, agencies and maintenance firms bill predictable recurring amounts to a small number of clients — which makes each unpaid invoice a much larger share of the month, and makes chasing it personally awkward.

Book a demo See how reconciliation works

The problem

Concentration makes the receivable riskier and the follow-up harder.

A firm with forty retainer clients does not have a receivables volume problem. It has a concentration problem: one client three months behind is a material part of the quarter, and that client is also someone a partner will be sitting across from next week.

So follow-up gets deferred. It falls to whoever did the work, who is the least willing person in the firm to make the call, and who has the strongest reason not to sour the relationship over an invoice that may already have been paid into an account nobody reconciled.

The result is a familiar pattern: a debtors list that is mostly accurate, a few entries that are certainly wrong, and no one confident enough in the difference to act on any of it decisively.

Obligations

What this sector actually bills.

Zetu models each of these as its own obligation, with its own schedule, policy and aging — rather than collapsing them into one balance per account.

Monthly retainer
Monthly
The core obligation. Predictable, contracted, and usually the largest line.
Service contracts
Quarterly or annual
Maintenance and support agreements with a term and a renewal date.
Project fees and milestones
On milestone
Irregular obligations against a defined schedule of deliverables.
Time and materials overage
Variable
Above the retainer's included scope. The most disputed line in the category.
Disbursements and pass-throughs
As incurred
Costs incurred for the client that are not the firm's income.
Annual renewals and uplifts
Annual
Indexed increases that need to be applied consistently and explained.
Deposits and advance fees
One-off
Held against future work, drawn down as it is delivered.
Late payment charges
Per contract
Provided for in the engagement letter, and rarely applied without thought.

Reconciliation

Where the money stops being traceable.

The cases that consume the time. Each is a state an item can be in, with an owner and an outcome.

Client pays a round number
A payment on account that does not match any single invoice and has to be spread.
Payment from a group company
The paying entity is not the contracting entity, and neither is on the invoice.
Paid net of withholding tax
The amount received is less than the invoice by design, and the difference is not a shortfall.
Several invoices, one transfer
A client clearing three months at once, needing allocation across three obligations.
Disputed overage line
The client pays the retainer and withholds the overage, leaving a partly-settled invoice.
Disbursements confused with fees
Pass-through costs treated as income, distorting both the receivable and the revenue.

Money you hold and cannot yet attribute is reported beside the money that is properly allocated, rather than disappearing into one figure. How reconciliation works covers the general case.

Month summaryRetainers & recurring fees · August 2026

Collected: 91.9%; of expected
Matched: 98.0%; of received
Open items: 12; awaiting a person

Expected: $187,500100.0%
Received: $172,40091.9%
Reconciled: $168,90090.1%
Needs review: $3,5001.9%
Outstanding: $15,1008.1%

12 to reviewReceived is not the same number as reconciled. The gap is the work.

Their side

Clients get their own view of the same record.

A client's finance team chasing your finance team for a copy of an invoice is an hour neither side should be spending.

Retainer position and open invoices
Which invoices a payment settled, and what remains
Statements for a period, without asking for them

Not a copy of your figures — the same obligations and settlements your team works from, read from the other end. How the portal works.

Following up

Separate the relationship from the follow-up.

The single most useful thing a firm can do is take receivables follow-up off the person who delivers the work. That requires a queue someone else can work from, with enough context that they are not phoning a client about money that arrived last week.

It also requires knowing which balances are genuinely disputed. A client withholding an overage line while paying the retainer is not a delinquent client — they are a client with a disagreement, and it should be routed to whoever can resolve it rather than escalated.

For the accounts that are simply not paying, the ordinary machinery applies: aging, an owner, a promise, an arrangement, and a documented escalation path that a partner can sign off on with the history in front of them.

The general machinery is on the collections page.

Worklist · overdue accountsSorted by next recoverable action

Overdue accounts with days past due, balance and the next action for each.
Account	Days past due	Balance	Next action
Halberd Logistics LtdRetainer clientacc-8104	13	$3,400	Reminder queued
Corveau GroupRetainer clientacc-8250	29	$2,800	Hold — payment in review
Stanmore & CoProject clientacc-8391	57	$9,600	Promise due today
Dalby InteriorsRetainer clientacc-8677	103	$5,250	Escalate to the partner

Showing 4 of 41 accounts

Corveau Group — A transfer of $2,800 arrived under a parent company name that is not on this account. It is almost certainly theirs.
Stanmore & Co — Promised $4,000 by 24 August against three outstanding invoices. Kept 3 of 3 previous promises.

How Zetu works here

From obligation to standing, in this sector.

Retainers as recurring obligations

Contracted amounts on a contracted cycle, with the engagement's terms — grace, uplift, late charge — attached to the obligation.

Overage and disbursements kept separate

Included scope, overage and pass-through costs as distinct lines, so a dispute about one does not stall the others.

Payments on account allocated properly

A round-number payment spread across obligations by rule, with the remainder visible rather than absorbed.

Withholding tax handled as a fact

An amount received net of withholding is not an underpayment. Recording the difference correctly keeps the receivable honest.

Follow-up off the delivery team

A worklist someone else can run, already excluding accounts with money in review or an open dispute.

Escalation with the history attached

When a partner does have the conversation, they have the full account in front of them rather than a balance.

Capabilities

What matters most for this sector

Monthly, quarterly and annual retainers
Service contracts with terms and renewal dates
Milestone and project obligations
Overage billing separate from included scope
Disbursements and pass-through costs as distinct obligations
Payments on account allocated across invoices
Group companies as payers for contracting entities
Withholding tax recorded rather than treated as shortfall
Deposits and advances drawn down against work
Annual uplifts applied consistently
Disputes routed rather than escalated
Collections worklist independent of the delivery team

Questions

Common questions

Can Zetu handle payments received net of withholding tax?

Yes, and handling it properly matters more than it sounds. A payment short by the withholding amount is not a partial payment — treating it as one leaves a permanent residue of small balances that make the whole debtors list untrustworthy. Zetu records the deduction as what it is, so the obligation settles fully.

Do we need to replace our practice management or time-recording system?

No. Those systems own scope, time and delivery. Zetu owns what is owed, what settled it, and what to do about the rest. The sensible arrangement is that your practice system tells Zetu what to bill and Zetu owns everything downstream of that.

Our clients dispute overage lines regularly. Does that break the workflow?

It is the ordinary case, not a break. Overage is a separate obligation from the retainer, so a client can pay the retainer and dispute the overage without either being misrepresented. The disputed obligation stops aging into the collections queue and is routed to whoever can resolve it.

Take receivables off your partners.

Bring your aged debtors list. We will show you which entries are genuinely overdue, which are disputes, and which have already been paid.

Book a demo Talk to us