Bill and Cost Rates

Bill Rates

In order to track billable revenue from time worked, you may choose to associate bill rates with your projects. These rates are used when time is entered into the project timesheet to calculate billing totals on a per timestamp basis. The billing information can then be totaled in reports to give totals for jobs, customers, and tasks.

Bill rates can be entered or edited in three places:

  • From the Projects list page. Entering a rate for a project on this page creates a default rate that’s used for anyone entering time using this project unless an override rate is specified for specific employees.
  • From the Projects section of the Lists tab in individual user settings (for user-level override rates)
  • On the timesheet for individual time entries that override the other predefined values listed above.

Please refer to these articles (located in the Account Administration section of the Help Pages) for detailed instructions regarding bill rate setup:

Cost Rates

While cost rates are set up and edited in the same way as bill rates, cost rates are assigned through account codes and can be used for job costing by task, location, or other parameters.

Cost rates can be entered and edited in three places:

  • From the Account Codes list page. Entering a rate for an account code on this page creates a default rate that’s used for anyone entering time using this account code unless an override rate is specified for specific employees.
  • From the Account Codes section of the Lists tab in individual user settings (for user-level override rates).
  • On the timesheet for individual time entries that override the other predefined values listed above.

Account codes can be used both with project and hourly time tracking.

  • When used on the hourly timesheet, cost rates are used to calculate gross variable pay (pay that is calculated based on the account code selected) on payroll reports. This is useful for paying different rates when employees or contractors work on different paying jobs.
  • When used on the project timesheet, the cost rate is meant to be used for job costing and could represent a user’s pay or their total overhead cost.

Please refer to these articles for detailed instructions regarding cost rate setup:

Restricted Fields and Columns

When adding project time or viewing the project timesheet, you may notice the bill and cost rate fields labeled as Restricted Fields. Viewing and recording bill and cost rate data is restricted to administrators and supervisors with appropriate supervisor settings. Employees never see bill or cost rate information from within their accounts.

Bill and cost rate data can also be hidden and not included in project time reports by deselecting the appropriate boxes on the reporting form.

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