Cost rates and billable rates

Every hour logged in Avaza can carry two rates. The billable rate is what you charge your customer for the hour. The cost rate is what the hour costs you, such as a salary or a contractor's fee. Avaza saves both on each time entry when it's logged. Invoices, dashboard widgets and most reports then use the rates saved on the entry.

Where rates are set

Rates start as defaults, which are copied into each project. There you can change them for that project only.

Defaults are copied when a person joins a project or a category is added to it. New projects get every category marked is Default?, and a project created from a template can bring the template's rates. After that, the project keeps its own values: changing a default doesn't change projects that already have that person or category. To push a person's new rates to their existing projects, use Bulk Update Rates. For a category, change the rates on each project's Categories tab.

Which rate a time entry gets

The project's Billing Method decides where the billable rate comes from:

Time in a non-billable category never gets a billable rate, whatever the method. See project settings for more on each method, and different rates for each project.

The cost rate works the same way for every method: the category's Cost Amount on the project if it has one, otherwise the person's Cost Rate on the project. To use each person's cost rate, leave the categories' Cost Amount empty on that project.

What each rate is used for

• Billable rates price time on invoices: Add Time uses the rate saved on each entry. See adding uninvoiced time to an invoice. They also value time in the Uninvoiced Items report, and in fee budgets that count time at its billable rate.
• Cost rates show what the work costs you. Reports such as the Project Summary and Project Profitability use them to show profit, and so does the Cost column on All Projects. See project profitability. When you add a contractor's or supplier's time to a bill, the cost rate is the price of each hour.
• The Project Profit Margin Analysis report is the exception: it uses the current rates in the project's settings, not the rates saved on each entry.

When you change a rate

When you change a person's or a category's rates in a project's settings, Avaza asks whether to apply them to existing timesheets:

• No, the current settings should only apply to new timesheets (the default): existing entries keep their rates. An entry that someone edits later picks up the new rates.
• Yes, update all existing uninvoiced timesheets.
• Yes, update existing uninvoiced timesheets within date range: only entries dated in the range. New time uses the new rates either way.

A second question does the same for resource scheduling bookings, which store rates too.

Good to know:

• Time already on an invoice keeps its billable rate.
• A person's new billable rate only reaches existing time on Person Hourly Rate projects. A category update also applies the category's Billable and Payable ticks to its existing entries.
• If you type a person's rate straight into the Members table instead of opening Person Details, only new time uses it.
• Changing the Billing Method or the project's rate updates the billable rate on all the project's uninvoiced time when you save. Avaza doesn't ask first.

Who can see and change rates

Portfolio Managers only reach projects they're members of. Rates don't show on the Timesheets page, so people logging time don't see them there. In reports, a Project Manager sees amounts only on projects where they have the rates permission. See Project Manager and Portfolio Manager roles.