Quick answer
Audit the lead record, not only the monthly total
To audit Google LSA lead charges after October 1, record the lead identifier, every related conversation time, call outcome, current charge or credit status, and the business outcome. Review the first week for routing failures, then compare October 1–28 with September 3–30 in the same account time zone.
What this covers
- Five-field minimumKeep the lead ID, related conversations, call outcome, current charge or credit state, and business outcome together.
- 28-day baselineCompare September 3–30 with October 1–28 in the same account time zone and preserve changes in staffing, routing, and settings.
- Outcome disciplineA charged lead, connected call, qualified inquiry, booking, and posted credit are separate events and need separate fields.
Downloadable charge ledger
One row for the charge, the call, and the business result
The downloadable ledger keeps Google records, business-owned outcomes, and PrimeLSA calculations distinct. The example contains no customer information.
What Google recorded
Lead ID, conversation ID, event time, charge state, credit state, and call duration when the account or API exposes them.
What happened after the contact
Answered or missed, service fit, qualified status, booked outcome, completed work, and lost reason.
What the team calculates
Charged missed-call share, connection rate, booking rate, net call-lead cost, and net cost per booked outcome.
The minimum viable Google LSA charge audit
Start with five fields for every call lead: lead identifier, related conversation times, call outcome, current charge or credit state, and business outcome. Add account, location, service line, and time-zone context before comparing periods.
If you need the rule itself, read the October 2026 Google LSA missed-call policy. This page focuses on the audit after the change takes effect, not another recap of the announcement.
Source review completed August 26, 2026. Google reporting, automated-credit, valid-lead, and Google Ads API documentation can change. Recheck visible labels in the account before turning this ledger into a client report.
Establish the September 3–30 baseline
Use September 3–30 as the practical 28-day pre-policy baseline and October 1–28 as the first same-length post-policy window. The weekday mix stays aligned, which makes the comparison cleaner than a calendar-month comparison.
The window is an operating review, not statistical proof. It can reveal changes in charged missed-call share, connection, qualification, booking, and net cost. It cannot prove the policy caused a change when staffing, demand, seasonality, routing, schedules, services, or credits also moved.
- Use the account's time zone for the export and every conversation timestamp.
- Save profile hours, ad schedule, staffed phone coverage, routing destinations, overflow, and voicemail state.
- Record budget, bidding, service, service-area, promotion, weather, holiday, outage, and staffing changes.
- Keep the raw September export unchanged; add reviewed fields instead of overwriting source values.
Pull charged leads, call records, and credits
Build the ledger from source records instead of memory or a month-end total. Google's Local Services reporting documentation says reports can show charged leads, lead type, total lead spend, a lead list, and credits for a selected period. The exact interface can differ by account and may move as reporting changes.
Use the step-by-step LSA report guide for navigation. Keep recording URLs, caller details, message text, legal narratives, health information, and payment details out of a broad shared spreadsheet.
| Source | Fields to capture | Limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Local Services lead record | Event time, lead type, charged state, credit state, feedback status | Visible fields vary by category, access, and account surface. |
| Local Services report | Charged leads, lead types, spend, lead list, credits | Aggregate totals do not explain qualification or booking. |
| Google Ads billing | Original charge, invoice period, posted account credit | A later credit can leave the original invoice charge visible. |
| Phone or intake system | Answered, missed, abandoned, transferred, voicemail, overflow | Its call-duration timer may not match Google's timer. |
| CRM or job system | Qualified, booked, completed, revenue stage, lost reason | These are business-owned definitions, not Google billing states. |
Match one lead to every related conversation
A Local Services lead can have more than one conversation. Google's Google Ads API guide for Local Services campaigns documents a one-to-many relationship between the read-only lead and conversation resources. That matters when an initial contact is not charged but a later qualifying conversation is charged.
Use the sequence Lead record → first conversation → later conversation → current charge and credit state → business outcome. The ordinary interface may not expose every API field. Without API access, reconstruct the sequence from authorized phone records and timestamps, label the source, and mark uncertain matches as uncertain.
- Lead identifier and conversation identifier, when available
- Conversation channel, participant type, and event time
- End-to-end call duration from the Google Ads API, when available
- Whether the lead is charged, the current credit state, and whether feedback was submitted
Separate charge status from call and business outcome
Teams often use lead for several different events. Give each event its own field. A call can be charged and missed, connected but unqualified, qualified but never booked, or booked and later canceled.
Do not label a call invalid when the business only means it did not book. Google's valid-lead decision and the business's service, customer, and sales criteria answer different questions.
| Term | Working definition | Record owner |
|---|---|---|
| Received call lead | A call contact attributed to Local Services Ads. | Google record |
| Missed call | No live business connection on that attempt; label voicemail and automation separately. | Phone record plus review rule |
| Connected call | A business representative or authorized intake provider spoke with the caller. | Business definition |
| Charged lead | Google marked the lead as billable at that point in time. | Google record |
| Qualified inquiry | The request matches documented service, location, and customer criteria. | Business definition |
| Booked outcome | The caller scheduled the chosen next step, job, estimate, appointment, or consultation. | CRM or booking system |
Reconcile charged, in-review, and credited leads
Google's automated lead-credit documentation lists Not charged, Charged, In review, and Credited states. Google says most credits reach the account balance within 30 days and that the original lead charge remains on the invoice.
Keep the original charge, current status, posted credit, and credit date in separate columns. Do not replace the charge with zero while a review is pending. Read how automated LSA lead credits work and record factual Google LSA lead feedback where available. Feedback and a poor business outcome do not guarantee a credit.
| Initial charge | Current state | Posted credit | Net cost treatment |
|---|---|---|---|
| $100 | Charged | $0 | $100 |
| $100 | In review | $0 | $100 pending review |
| $100 | Credited | $100 | $0 |
Calculate the metrics Google does not calculate for your business
These are PrimeLSA operating calculations. They are not Google billing metrics, ranking formulas, performance forecasts, or credit rules. Use the same denominator in both periods and show a blank or unavailable result when the denominator is zero.
Calculate service-line or practice-area results after the account-wide review. A blended average can hide a strong emergency category, a weak scheduled-service category, or a broad low-fit practice-area mix.
| Metric | PrimeLSA operating calculation | Question answered |
|---|---|---|
| Charged missed-call share | Charged missed call leads ÷ all charged call leads | How much charged call volume was missed? |
| Connected-call rate | Connected call leads ÷ all call leads | How often did a live conversation occur? |
| Business-qualified rate | Qualified inquiries ÷ charged call leads | How often did charged calls fit the business? |
| Booking rate | Booked outcomes ÷ charged call leads | How often did a charged call reach the selected next step? |
| Net call-lead cost | Call-lead charges − posted call-lead credits | What cost remained after posted credits? |
| Net cost per connected call | Net call-lead cost ÷ connected calls | What did each live connection cost? |
| Net cost per booked outcome | Net call-lead cost ÷ booked outcomes | What did each booked next step cost? |
Compare October 1–28 with the pre-policy period
Build one before-and-after matrix with all call leads, charged call leads, charged missed calls, connected calls, qualified inquiries, booked outcomes, posted credits, and net call-lead cost.
Before attributing a difference to the new policy, check profile hours, ad schedule, staffed coverage, phone routing, answering vendors, holidays, weather, promotions, outages, service categories, service areas, budget, bids, call mix, and credits still under review.
| Review field | September 3–30 | October 1–28 | Context note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charged call leads | |||
| Charged missed calls | |||
| Connected calls | |||
| Qualified inquiries | |||
| Booked outcomes | |||
| Posted credits | |||
| Net call-lead cost |
Audit paths for owners, agencies, and multi-location teams
Legal practices can extend the ledger with the law-firm LSA intake workflow for consultation, retained-matter, general-lawyer lead, and privacy-safe outcome fields.
Single-location owner
Use the lead list, Local Services report, phone log, and booking system. Review the ledger weekly with the person responsible for calls.
Agency
Preserve source labels and account time zones. Ask the client to own qualification and booking; do not infer booked work from call length.
Multi-location team
Use one data dictionary across locations, retain local outage and staffing notes, and compare coverage blocks before ranking locations.
Keep a weekly charge review after the policy change
Use Google LSA call analysis to review what happened on the call, then compare the outcome with the wider Google LSA cost-per-lead framework before changing budget or bidding.
- Match each new charge to the call outcome and related conversations.
- Update in-review and credited states without erasing the original charge.
- Record qualification, booking, completion, and lost reason in the business system.
- Review repeated misses by staffed time block, location, and service line.
Editorial note
Written by Arthur Z and last updated August 26, 2026. PrimeLSA keeps public guidance practical, Google Local Services Ads-specific, and connected to real account review.