Working with base rates and billable rates (5 min 02 sec.)
There are four critically important data fields that must have the correct values if WorkflowMax is to report the financial aspects of a job accurately—allowing you to make properly informed decisions for your business.
If the values are incorrect, the information in your reports will be misleading or worse, which in turn could result in you making decisions that are detrimental to your business. The four data fields are:
- The task base rate The task base rate reflects the cost to your business of your staff working for an hour on that task. The task base rate is only ever used at the quote stage, and only if you do not assign staff to the tasks in the quote. and staff base rate The staff base rate reflects the cost to your business of an hour of a staff member's time. It is not simply their hourly rate but needs to include an allowance for other costs such as holidays, superannuation, sick leave. are the hourly cost to the business of time worked on tasks or by staff.
- The task billing rate The task billing rate is the cost to your client of your staff working for an hour on that task. The rate has a default value for each task that can be overridden on a job or client basis if required. and staff billing rate The staff billing rate is the cost to your client of an hour of your staff member's time. The billing rate has a default value for each staff member that can be overridden on a task, job or client basis if required. are the hourly cost to the customer of time worked on tasks or by staff.
You can control whether billing is based on the task billing Task billing is a client billing method based on billable rates associated with specific tasks. This method is useful if you usually have standard rates for a specific task, regardless of which staff members are working on it. Compare Staff billing. rate or staff billing Staff billing is a client billing method based on billable rates associated with specific staff members. This method is useful if you have several staff working on a task but wish to charge them out at different rates, based on their experience, for example. Compare Task billing. rate by changing the setting of the task invoice rate The Task Invoice Rate is a key configuration setting (set in Business > Settings > Organisation Settings > Job (Section) ). If it is set to Staff Billable, WorkflowMax will use Staff billing when calculating the cost of time spent working on a task. If it is set to Task Billable, WorkflowMax will use Task billing when calculating the cost of time spent working on a task. in your organisation settings.
The article on the Job financial summary report explains how base rates and billing rates are used to calculate various costs and billed amounts.
- Default, custom and historic billing rates
In WorkflowMax, you can bill your clients based on default billing rates or custom billing rates. A related feature, called historic rates, allows you deal with changes to the default billing rates during the course of a job.
Default billing rates
When you add a new staff member or create a new task in WorkflowMax, you must set default billing rates for each.
The default billing rates consist of the staff base/billable rate and the task base/billable rate.
These rates will be used for all billing and reporting unless you set up historic billing rates or use custom billing rates to override the default rates.
For further details, see Default billing rates.
Custom billing rates
Custom billing rates can override the default billing rates and extend your control of the way that you apply staff or task billing rates in various situations. For example, you can set up a:
- custom staff rate for a specific job or task
- custom task rate for a specific client or job.
For further details, see Custom billing rates.
Historic billing rates
Part way through a job, it may become necessary to change the billing rates for a staff member or for a task. To ensure a smooth transition between the old and new rates for reporting and billing purposes, you can use the WorkflowMax Historic Rates feature.
This feature allows you to retain the old billing rate up until a specified date. The old rate will:
- apply to any unbilled time on the job until the specified date
- be reflected in any historical reporting, ensuring accurate job profitability reports.
From the specified date onwards, the new rate will be applied to all unbilled time and to any future reporting.
Adding a historic rate will not affect any custom billing rates you may have set up against tasks, clients or jobs – these rates will continue to apply as expected.
For further details, see Historic billing rates.
- Changing base rates and billing rates retrospectively
If staff or task base and billing rates have been entered incorrectly, or at the wrong moment in time, it may become necessary to change these rates. The question then arises – what happens to the base and billing rates associated with time sheets that have been written in the past? Do the changes apply retrospectively?
For further details see Change base rates and billing rates retrospectively.