Rates and how an hour is valued

Rate cards

A rate card holds rates in one currency, changing from a day. The firm's own cards are under Settings, Time & billing, Rates, Charge rates; a client's are on the party's Rates tab. The firm keeps them at four levels:

• The firm, a rate per grade.
• A fee earner, a default rate and a rate per practice area.
• A client, for the rates agreed with them.
• A matter, for a rate agreed on that file alone, for everyone on it or for one member of its team.

Within a level, a rate for a particular activity comes before the general one.

The order the system looks

For each entry, the system takes the first rate it finds in this order:

1. The fee earner's own rate on the matter.
2. The matter's rate.
3. The client's rate.
4. The fee earner's rate for the matter's practice area.
5. The fee earner's default rate.
6. The firm's rate for the fee earner's grade.

It looks for the rate in force on the day the work was done, in the matter's currency, never today's.

A team member's rate on one matter

Open the matter, then Team. Rates on this matter lists everyone on the team with the rate their work there is valued at today and where it comes from. From a person's menu choose Set their rate on this matter, enter the rate and the day it applies from, check what it changes, and save. The first such rate makes the matter's own rate card. The rest of the team keeps the matter's rate, or whatever applies to them below it.

Changing a rate

Adding a new rate ends the current one the day before, in the same step, so two rates never apply on the same day.

No rate

Time recorded where no rate applies is saved at no value and flagged, so it is found and fixed rather than billed at nothing.

A rate below the firm's standard

A client or matter rate lower than the firm's own rate for the grade it stands in for waits for approval. Give the reason when you set it; until a partner who holds rate.approve (approve a client's or matter's rate set below the standard) approves it, the firm's standard rate applies. Nobody approves their own: in a firm with only one person who may approve, that person's rate applies at once and the record says no second approver was available. Pending rates wait in Approvals and on the card.

Discounts

A client or matter card can carry an agreed discount, a percentage off the standard value of the work, from a day. Open the card, then Discounts, Add a discount, with the reason. It waits for approval in the same way, and the full value applies until it is approved.

The discount is shown wherever the time is valued: on the time entry, on the pre-bill line as the value at standard rates, the discount and what is billed, and in the realisation report, which counts the discount apart from write offs. A bill layout with Show the agreed discount on prints a line under the fees saying what came off the standard rates.

Work charged per unit

Some work is charged a flat amount for each unit rather than by the hour: a letter, a page, an attendance. Set the activity code's Charged to A flat amount for each unit and name the unit. A rate for that activity is then an amount for each unit, and a time entry under it asks How many, on the full form, in quick entry and when a timer is stopped; left empty, it is one. The week grid records hours only, so work charged per unit entered there counts one unit, changed on the entry's own page. The time is still recorded for the firm's own measure.

Cost rates

What each person costs the firm an hour is kept under Settings, Time & billing, Rates, Cost rates. Only people who hold rate.cost.read (see what an hour of each person costs the firm) see a cost anywhere: on the register, in exports and in the fee earner margin report. A time entry carries its cost from the day the work was done, and a cost rate any entry was costed at is never changed or removed.

The yearly rate review

Settings, Time & billing, Rates, Reviews raises the firm's rates from a day.

1. Choose Review rates, name the review, choose the day the new rates apply from and how they rise: one percentage for every rate, or a percentage for each grade.
2. Choose the cards it raises and, if you wish, an amount to round new rates up to.
3. Open the review. Rates it would raise lists every rate in force and its new rate; Clients who will be owed notice lists the clients whose billing arrangement promises notice of new rates.
4. Choose Apply. Exactly the rates listed are written; nothing before the review's day changes.

The notice each client is owed is set on the matter's billing arrangement, under Notice of new rates, in days. After applying, choose Make the notice letters to make a letter for each client from the firm's Notice of a change in our rates template, filed on the client's matter and emailed or made to post. Record each notice as given, by email, post or hand; a notice not given by its day is marked late.