As a new Monograph user, you may want to include historical billing information so the app understands what has already been billed on your projects. This is done by adding historical billed values and is designed to help you move to invoicing faster, not to recreate past reporting.
The real value begins once your team starts logging time directly in Monograph. From that point forward, Analytics provides a much clearer view of performance, helping you identify patterns, optimize workflows, and make informed decisions going forward.
During onboarding, the priority is building out your active projects. Historical billed values can be added as part of this process to ensure a smooth and efficient setup.
Entering Historical Billed Amounts
📖 Best practice: Firms are encouraged to enter historical billed amounts within 90 days of their subscription start date. Once the first invoice is opened for a project, this option is no longer available. Enter all historical billed amounts before creating your first invoice to avoid missing data.
Historical billed amounts allow firms to record work that was billed before starting in Monograph, so project financials and invoices reflect an accurate picture of past billing.
These amounts:
Appear in Project Financials, Unbilled, and on invoices
Are used for display and reference only
Do not impact analytics or reporting, including Total Unbilled, Total Invoiced, or revenue calculations.
Historical billed amounts must be entered at the level of detail required to display correctly on an invoice:
Hourly phases: Enter totals by role
All other phase types: Enter a single lump-sum amount
🚨 Items that do not appear on invoices with previously billed amounts (such as additional items) cannot have historical billed values entered.
Historical billed amounts can be added from two places: Project Financials and Unbilled Report.
Adding from the Project Financials
Navigate to Projects → Select a project → Financials
At the top of the Financials page, you’ll see a purple banner prompting you to add historical billed amounts
Click Add now to begin
Enter historical amounts for:
Phases
Consultants
Expenses
Retainers
Click Save to apply your changes
Once saved, the Project Financials page will display the historical data entered.
Adding from the Unbilled Report
This option is available to all customers on the platform and to projects that don't yet have invoices created, whether in draft or open status.
Navigate to Money → Unbilled
Click the arrow to the left of the project name to expand and show all phases
Click the ellipsis next to the relevant phase(s) and select Edit historical amounts
On the next screen, you’ll see all phases associated with the project, including:
Phase name
Fee type
Budget
For hourly phases, expand the phase using the arrow and enter amounts for each hourly rate
Repeat the process for Consultants and Expenses.
Click Save to apply changes
Entering Retainers as Historical Billed Amounts
When entering retainers, keep in mind that there are two options to choose from: Retainer Collected and Retainer Applied.
Retainer Collected: Use this to enter the full amount of the retainer that was previously collected.
Retainer Applied: Use this to record any portion of the retainer that has already been used on past invoices.
Once this information is saved, any remaining retainer balance will be available for use on future invoices.
Learn how to use a retainer here.
Editing Historical Billed Amounts
After adding Historical Billed Amounts, they can be edited by hovering over the phase's Billed amount in the Project Financials or Unbilled Report to see the Historical value.
From here, click the purple edit icon next to the historical amounts box. If you need to delete any historical billed values, you can do so by resetting the historical amount saved to 0 and saving.
Viewing Historical Billed Amounts
After adding Historical Billed Amounts, they can be viewed by hovering over the phase's Billed amount in the Project Financials or Unbilled Report to see the Historical value.
Additionally, if historical retainers have been added, they will appear in the Retainer Summary in the Project Overview, and any remaining balance still not used will be available for use on upcoming invoices.
Historical Billed Amounts in Invoices
Once historical billed amounts have been added, it’s time to build your first Monograph invoice. When working in the invoice builder, hovering over the Previously Billed details - whether for project phases, consultant phases, or project expenses - will display those historical amounts.
While adding historical billed amounts can help set a baseline, the true value comes from consistent time tracking and invoicing moving forward.
This unlocks the full potential of Monograph to better highlight trends, identify inefficiencies, and enable firms to manage projects more intelligently and profitably.
✏️ Learn how to create your first invoice here.