Settlement or billing?

Recently got into discussion on how precisely and professionally translate the polish word "rozliczenie/rozrachunek". Some of us are more convinced into "billing" and some into "settlement". What is the difference between this two translations? What is the precise use case of both this words in context of professional accounting, banking etc?

The sample usage that represents our needs would be something like:

My bookkeeper has recently shown me the current-month [settlements/billings]. It looks like that we have too many expenses this month.

Solution 1:

It depends on the meaning of "rozliczenie/rozrachuneck". If the Polish words mean bills or, more usually, invoices which have been received in the period but not all of which have paid then the correct translation is "billings" or "invoicing". If, on the other hand, the Polish words refer only to bills which have been paid then the bills have been settled and you can refer to the transactions as "settlements".

In fact you can refer to "settlement" of bills which have remained unpaid over a longer period as "settlements" for the accounting period in which the payment has been made as well. For example if you received a bill in September but didn't pay it until November it would be part of September's billings but the actual outgoing would be part of November's settlements. In October it would be an outstanding debt or an outstanding invoice.

As I said it depends on the meaning of the Polish terms. The difference between an invoice (bill) and the payment (settlement) of that bill is so fundamental to finance that I have difficulty imagining that the distinction is not made in Polish.