A retainer is recurring income. It still needs a monthly handover.

Per-period handover

• Current deliverables, quantities, platforms and deadlines.
• Agreed fee and currency; included revision rounds.
• New requests and any changed usage rights, price or deadline.
• Billing trigger and whether the invoice was actually issued.
• PO/reference and Finance/AP destination; payment terms, due-date starting event and due date.
• Outstanding payment from earlier periods, checked against current records.

Close the agreed deliverables

Start the handover with the list you agreed, not the list you remember. For most writers, content creators and social managers a retainer is a quantity: a number of posts, articles, edits or scheduled weeks, with a set number of revision rounds each.

Go line by line. Delivered and approved, delivered and awaiting feedback, or not delivered. A deliverable stuck in revision round four when you agreed two is not a late deliverable — it is extra work that hasn't been named yet.

Work carries over only by agreement

Unfinished work does not automatically become next month's problem, and it does not automatically vanish either. Both of those defaults cost you. Decide it explicitly with the client: deliver it next month in place of something else, deliver it next month on top of scope for an agreed fee, or close it out.

Whatever you decide, write it into the next month's scope confirmation. A retainer that quietly accumulates carry-over is a retainer you are slowly working for free.

Extras get quoted, not absorbed

Retainers attract small requests, and small requests are where retainer margin goes to die. Anything outside the agreed list gets a price and, where relevant, a changed deadline, before you start. One short message is far less awkward than an invoice the client was not expecting.

Only bill an extra once you have a written yes to both the price and the revised dates.

Record client dependencies with dates

Assets, logins, product information, brand approvals, ad account access. Note what you needed, the date you asked, and the date you received it. When a month runs late, this is the difference between a defensible conversation and a vague disagreement about who was slow.

Confirm the billing trigger and due date

Retainers are billed in advance, in arrears or on a fixed calendar date — whichever your agreement says. Check which one applies before you raise anything, then calculate the due date from the payment terms you agreed, not from a habit.

Depending on the agreement, itemise the retainer fee and approved extras on an invoice or invoice them separately. Check the PO and AP destination; keep the evidence for the extras. If you are unsure whether a month is genuinely invoiceable, run the invoice-ready checklist first.

Open next month as its own clear record

A retainer may be one ongoing agreement; each period need not legally be a separate job. Keeping a separate working record for each period makes deliverables, extras, invoices and unpaid balances easier to review.

Open the next month deliberately: the agreed deliverables, any agreed carry-over, the dependency dates, and the billing trigger. In DUE you keep each month as its own job record with its deliverables and invoice attached. DUE does not create next month's job for you, does not connect to a live bank feed, and does not send anything to your client — you add the job and send the invoice yourself.

Three templates you can adapt

Replace every bracketed field before sending.

Subject: [Month] scope confirmation — [client]

Hi [name],

Before [month] starts, here is what the retainer covers this month:

- [deliverable 1, quantity]
- [deliverable 2, quantity]
- [number] rounds of revisions per deliverable

I will need [assets / logins / product information] by [date] to hit those dates. Anything outside this list is quoted separately before I start it.

Happy to adjust the mix if your priorities have changed — just let me know by [date].

Thanks,
[your name]

Subject: Quote for extra work — [request]

Hi [name],

[Request] sits outside this month's retainer scope. I can do it for [amount and currency].

Adding it moves [affected deliverable] from [original date] to [new date], unless you would rather drop or defer [existing deliverable] to keep the original dates.

Reply with a yes to either option and I will start.

Thanks,
[your name]

Subject: Waiting on feedback — [deliverable]

Hi [name],

I sent [deliverable] on [date] and I am waiting on your consolidated feedback before I can finish it this month.

When do you expect to send it? Once I have it, I will confirm a revised delivery date that works with the rest of this month's schedule.

If it is easier, we can move [deliverable] into [next month]'s scope instead.

Thanks,
[your name]