Professional Services · Timesheet & billing automation
Billable time is walking out the door before the timesheet is opened
Banao builds passive time capture and billing automation for professional-services firms — pulling calendar entries, document activity, email threads, and call records into draft timesheet entries that fee earners review, not reconstruct.
The system does not auto-submit anything. Every entry is confirmed before it touches a bill. The result is more time recorded, better narratives, shorter billing cycles, and fewer write-offs — because the work is captured while it is still fresh.
A multi-practice accounting firm— passive capture deployed across five offices, draft entries into their practice-management system for partner sign-off.
The first call is free · 45 minutes · no obligation
What we build
What a Banao billing automation deployment includes
Time leakage happens at every step from the work itself to the invoice. We address each point rather than treating billing automation as a single problem.
Passive time capture from existing signals
Calendar meetings, document edits, email threads, and call logs are parsed into draft time entries mapped to the correct matter — so fee earners see a proposed log, not a blank timesheet.
Matter and client matching
Each captured activity is classified against your active matter list using email headers, document naming, and attendee lists — so entries arrive pre-assigned and require a confirmation, not a search.
Billing narrative drafting
AI-generated narratives built from the actual work done: which document, which clause, which call — not 'attended meeting'. Narratives meet your firm's billing standard out of the draft so partners spend less time rewriting entries.
Write-off identification and trend reporting
Time that is systematically written off flags by matter type, fee earner, and client — so the firm can see whether the write-off is a pricing problem, a scope problem, or a narrative quality problem, and address the right root cause.
WIP finalisation and billing cycle acceleration
Automated WIP review flags aged entries and incomplete narratives ahead of the billing cycle cutoff, so partners can finalise in a single sign-off session rather than a week of chasing.
Practice-management system integration
Draft entries write directly into your existing practice-management and billing system — Clio, Elite, LEAP, or a custom stack — via API. No dual-entry, no export file, no change to your billing workflow beyond the entries arriving already drafted.
Dogfooding
We run on the AI we build before you do
Banao runs a ~300-person engineering company on its own AI products. Vikaas handles our own demand-generation pipeline. InterviewGod screens every engineering hire. The same standard — a system that has to survive internal operational load before any client sees it — applies to every workflow we build.
When we build a passive time capture system, it has already run against the kind of fragmented, multi-context workday a real professional-services operation produces. That is the only meaningful test.
Runs Banao's own demand-gen pipeline across campaigns and channels.
Screens every engineering hire at Banao before reaching a partner.
The honest version
When billing automation is the wrong starting point
More captured time is only valuable if the underlying billing rates and matter structures are sound. We will tell you when they are not:
- Upstream pricing problems: if fee earners under-record because billing rates are indefensible with clients, capturing more of that time does not fix the problem — it accelerates the write-off. The real fix is in the rate conversation.
- Poor matter setup: if matters are set up inconsistently or with vague scope, automated classification will misroute entries. A matter hygiene audit often comes before the capture build.
- Very small firms: below about fifteen fee earners, passive capture usually adds more overhead than it saves. A structured end-of-day template is cheaper and equally effective.
How we start
How we start — prove the capture rate before you build
We do not quote a billing automation system off a brochure. We look at your actual time leakage first.
- 01
AI Discovery Sprint
2 weeks · fixed price
We audit two to four weeks of anonymised timesheet data alongside calendar and email activity for the same period, quantify the time leakage by source and fee-earner tier, and deliver a capture-rate estimate and ROI model — yours to keep. If you proceed, the Sprint is credited against the build.
- 02
Build
Signal integration covering calendar, email, and document systems; matter-matching model; narrative generation tuned to your billing standard; and practice-management integration. Fee-earner onboarding is part of the deliverable.
- 03
Production & continuous improvement
Live deployment with a partner sign-off dashboard, write-off analytics, and a feedback loop: corrections to auto-drafted entries improve matter classification and narrative quality over time.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Does the system read our emails and documents?
It reads metadata — sender, recipient, subject, document name, meeting title, duration — not the content of emails or privileged documents. The signal is the activity pattern and the context, not the substance of the communication. This is scoped and agreed before any integration is built.
What practice-management systems does this integrate with?
Clio, Elite 3E, LEAP, Karbon, and custom billing stacks with an accessible API. If your system is not on that list, the Discovery Sprint scopes the integration surface. Most systems have a time-entry API that covers what we need.
How do fee earners review and approve draft entries?
A lightweight review interface shows each draft entry — proposed time, matter, and narrative — alongside the source activity that generated it. One action confirms, one discards. The review is designed to take under two minutes per day for a typical fee earner's draft log.
Will this work for firms with complex matter hierarchies?
Yes. Matter matching is trained on your specific hierarchy — phase, task, and activity codes — not a generic legal taxonomy. The Discovery Sprint tests classification accuracy against your actual matter structure before any system is built.
How long until captured time volume improves?
Typically within the first four to six weeks of live deployment, as the matter-matching model stabilises and fee earners build the review habit. The Discovery Sprint baseline gives you a specific capture-rate target to measure against rather than a general expectation.
Get started
Find out how much billable time your firm is losing
Bring two to four weeks of timesheet data and your billing cycle timeline to a 45-minute call. We will show you where the leakage is and what it would take to close it.
Book a Discovery Sprint