1. Administrator Guide
  2. Administration – Global Settings
  3. Jobs, Rates

Jobs, Rates

Links are provided to forms for the following settings and configurations. They are located in Administration > Global Settings under Jobs, Rates. The following lists them in the order in which they display on the Global Settings window.

Billing Rates

Billing rates list view.

OpenAir lets you select how OpenAir determines hourly Billing Rates. The options are: Service, Service / Customer, Employee, Employee / Project, Customer / Project, and Project billing rules. This is a global setting that controls all billing rates in OpenAir. Therefore, you cannot choose Service for one customer and Project billing rules for another.

Important:

We strongly recommend that you use Project billing rules. Changing to another method from Billing Rules hides Billing Rules in your OpenAir account and may create confusion among your employees who do billing.

Note:

Your company may use the term Service or Activity. Depending on your company's terminology preferences, one or the other displays in selections on this form.

To access the Billing Rates:

  1. Go to Administration > Global Settings > Jobs, Rates > Billing Rates.

Service — This selection determines the billing rate to the customer based on the various kinds of services performed. These rates apply to all Customers.

Service / Customer — This selection is similar to the Service type noted above as the rate is based on the various kinds of services performed. The difference is that with this option, the Service rates dialog appears on the Customers form and lets you designate the billing rates for the kinds of services performed specifically for this customer. This is useful if you have preferred Customers for which you discount your services.

Employee — Choosing the Employee option selects the billing rate entered in the employee's Demographic record for the billing rate.

Employee / Project — This setting enables the Employee billing rate tab. The Employee billing rates link displays. By selecting this link, you are able to set billing rates by employee for this particular project.

Note:

The Employee billing rates link is not available via the Projects application, only through the Administration application.

Customer / Project —This setting enables the Billing information tab. If you create a new or edit an existing customer, you can then set a specific rate to be charged on all projects for this customer. The Employee billing rates link displays. This is useful if you charge a blended rate for all work done for a customer.

Project billing rules — Selecting this option provides you with the most flexibility in billing the customer. You can create billing rules for every project based on the terms of the particular contract or statement of work. You can use hourly billing rates, fixed fee, and receipt based billings.

Cost Centers

Cost centers form.

Cost centers function as a reporting and accounting tool to track costs related to expense receipts and employee time entries. You can associate cost centers with the following entities: Customers, Projects, Tasks, Services, Time types, Expense Items, and Employees.

To create Cost centers:

  1. Go to Administration > Global Settings > Jobs, Rates > Cost Centers.

  2. Select New Cost center from the Create Button.

  3. Enter the Name and Notes. By default, Active cost center is selected.

  4. Click Save. After saving the form, the list of cost centers will be displayed and you can click on links to set Receipt rules and Time entry rules.

Explanation:

Receipt rules — determine which receipts within expense reports are assigned to the cost center. Receipt rules can be set by Customer, Project, Task, Expense Items, and Employee. You can then chose multiple selections.

When an employee creates and saves an expense report, the associated expense item is checked against the receipt rule selections. If a receipt matches a selected item that is associated with a cost center, the cost center is assigned to the receipt. If no item is found, then no cost center is assigned.

There are multiple selections in case there is not one uniform way that costs are associated to a cost center, i.e., you can select a project and then an employee. In the majority of instances, the expense receipt is stamped with a cost as derived from its associated project. In the absence of a cost center on a project, OpenAir looks for the cost center associated to the employee, if applicable, to stamp the expense receipt. The same applies to time entries.

Time entry rules — determine which time entries are assigned to the cost center. Time entry rules can be set by Customer, Project, Task, Expense Items, and Employee. You can chose multiple selections.

When an employee creates and saves a timesheet, the associated time entry items are checked against the time entry rule selections. If a time entry matches a selected item that is associated with a cost center, the cost center is assigned to the cost, which is determined by multiplying the time entry by the employee's associated cost. If no item is found, then no cost center is assigned.

When an item is selected, a Cost center field is added to the form for that entity. You need to associate each item you selected with its appropriate cost center by editing these entities individually. For example, if you create a Employee cost center called US Employees, and have Employee for Receipt Rules, you then need to go to each employee in the US Group and add them to the US Group cost center on the Employee Demographic record.

Job Codes

Job codes form.

Job codes classify employees into general job positions defined by your company. Job codes are not necessarily job titles at the company. They are normally used as a type of employee that you bill out to a customer. You can give job codes a generic cost for calculating estimated margins without named resources. You can also give job codes a bill rate within a rate card. For example, you may create a Project Manager, Consultant, and Engineer job code. Generic resources may be associated with a job code to inherit rates for forecasting purposes. See Rate Cards.

To create Job codes:

  1. Go to Administration > Global Settings > Job codes.

  2. Select New Job code from the Create Button.

  3. Enter the Job code name and Loaded cost per hour (used to calculate project costs for analysis), select Currency, and associate with a Generic resource.

  4. Add Notes, if desired.

  5. Click Save.

Rate Cards

Rate cards form.

Use rate cards to define bill rates for a group of job codes. You can use rate cards to determine billing rates in Project Billing Rules as well as Project estimating based on job codes. You can create multiple rate cards, which is helpful if you negotiate different bill rates per job code, per customer. For example, for Customer ABC, a project manager bills at $150 per hour; however, for Customer XYZ, a project manager bills at $140 per hour. In this example, you would have two rate cards for each billing arrangement.

Note:

To view the list of rate cards, go to Administration > Global Settings > Job, Rates > Rate Cards > Rate Cards.

To view the list of rates set in all your rate cards, go to Administration > Global Settings > Job, Rates > Rate Cards > Rates.

To create Rate cards:

  1. Go to Administration > Global Settings > Jobs, Rates > Rate Cards.

  2. Select New Rate card from the Create Button.

  3. Enter the rate card Name.

  4. In the Rates section, select the Job code from the drop-down list (job codes must be previously created in OpenAir), the Rate (per hour) to be charged, and the Currency. See Job Codes.

  5. Add Notes for additional description, if desired.

  6. Click Save.