billing

Pluralbillings (some meanings)

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The process of tracking bills and amounts owed; also the department within a business that handles that tracking.

   The hospital's billing covers thousands of patient accounts each month.

   Forward any payment disputes to billing before the end of the day.

   Similarinvoicing, accounts

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The total amount of money charged or invoiced over a given period.

   Quarterly billing exceeded projections by nearly twenty percent.

   The startup's billing reached a million dollars in its first year.

   Similarinvoicing

   Note

   Charged is not the same as collected. Here the figure counts everything invoiced, whether or not it has been paid, and that sets it apart from the money still owed. It works as a mass noun (billing rose) and as a count noun, and the plural billings names several such totals.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The listing and ranking of a performer's or item's name among the credits, on a poster, or in a program.

   The veteran actor demanded top billing above the title.

   Both bands received equal billing on the festival lineup.

   Note

   In theater and film the word measures rank as much as inclusion: what matters is not only whether a name appears but where it sits. Top billing goes to the lead, and Nicolae Sfetcu's The Art of Movies (2014) points out that industry status alone does not earn it. Alexis Petridis extends the word to festival scheduling, calling Corbyn's Glastonbury slot between Run the Jewels and Craig David "a stunning piece of billing."

4. 4
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of bill.

   The hospital is billing her insurance directly for the procedure.

   We are billing the project in three installments.

   Note

   One spelling carries every verb sense of bill: charging a client, advertising by public notice, doves stroking bill against bill, and, in UK slang, rolling a marijuana cigarette. As a gerund it still takes an object (billing the client takes time), and that separates it from the nouns spelled the same way. Only those nouns form a plural, billings.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   The total money owed to a business by its customers for goods or services already delivered.

   The firm's billing climbed as more clients delayed their payments.

   Investors examined the company's billing to judge how much cash it could expect.

   Similarreceivables

Showing meanings only. Show all 5