Manage fixed price jobs when they need to be billed at an hourly rate

My job has changed from a fixed price for components of work, to being charged for additional work per hour. How do I manage the job?

Take an example where you have a project which started as a set fee for components of work. Those works have been invoiced (perhaps in advance, or at the end of completing the work). The client then asks for additional work which was outside the original scope, and is paying an hourly rate.

There are two ways to manage this type of billing scenario:

1. Mark the original job as completed – ensuring you have finalised your billing and create a new job, or
2. Once the tasks for the set fee have been completed, and billed, mark them with the green tick to indicate they have been completed – this will prevent any further time being added to them.

Then add a new task which will be billed at an additional hourly rate.

When you come to invoicing you will bill the "New" task at the hourly rate. If the other previous task does come through onto the invoice, then click on the task and write the time off, provided it has already been billed with the previous fixed price invoice.

I charge a fixed rate for a number of hours, and hourly rate above that. How do I set up my jobs?

Where you charge your clients a fixed monthly fee for x hours work, and invoice at time and materials any hours worked in addition to the x hour set fee, then the best way to manage your jobs in WorkflowMax is set out below:

1. Set up a non-billable task on the job for the pre-paid x hours
2. Add a billable cost to the job for the value of the fixed monthly fee
3. Save this job as a template, and use it to set up a monthly recurring job for this client
4. Set up a notification from Business > Settings > Notifications, and "custom" tab and create a notification for Job Task – Estimated vs Actual Time = 100%. (or 90% if you want a warning just prior to the time being used up). This means that when the estimated time is used up you will get a notification of this.

With the job set up, when the time logged against the non-billable task reaches 100%, go into the job and mark the non-billable task as complete, so no further time can be logged against it, and then add a new task to the job that is billable. Any new time captured on the job will be loaded against the billable task.

When you generate an invoice for this job, you will see a cost item, which captures the fixed monthly fee, and the new task that captures the additional billable time.