How does Operating decide which rate to use?
How Operating resolves the billing rate for each Position — checking from the most specific source down to a global fallback, in a fixed order.
Written By Lauri Eurén
Last updated 1 day ago
Operating works out the charge-out rate for each Position by checking the most specific source first and falling back until it finds one. A position-specific rate wins if it's set; otherwise the Project's Rate card sets the rate from the Position's Role, seniority, and Site; if the Rate card doesn't price that combination, its base rate applies; and if the Project has no Rate card at all, your global average rate is used. Non-billable work is always zero. This is the rate you bill clients — your internal cost rate is determined separately.
The order Operating checks
For a billable Position on a time-and-materials or capped time-and-materials Project, Operating resolves the rate in this order and stops at the first match:
Position-specific rate. A rate set directly on the Position overrides everything else.
The Rate card, by Role, seniority, and Site. Otherwise the Project's assigned Rate card sets the rate, looked up from the Position's Role, the assigned Person's seniority, and the Project's Site. If the Position has no Role of its own, the assigned Person's primary Role is used.
The Rate card's base rate. If the Rate card doesn't have a rate for that Role and seniority, its base rate applies.
Your global average rate. If the Project has no Rate card, Operating falls back to the global average rate set in Settings, so reports still show revenue instead of blanks.
A task can also carry its own billing rate, applied to the hours logged against that task.
Non-billable and fixed-price work
Non-billable Roles always resolve to a zero rate, whatever Rate card is in place. You can still use rates to estimate how fast you’d eat the budget if the project billing type was T&M.
On fixed-price Projects, the per-hour rate isn't what drives revenue — revenue comes from the Budget and its recognition method, not rate times hours.
Rates that change over time
A Project can carry more than one Rate card across different date ranges, so a Position's rate can change when a new Rate card takes over on a chosen date. Where the rate changed within the period a report covers, Operating shows it as mixed.
Seeing which rate was used
On a Project's Team tab, each Position shows its rate. Hovering over it reveals which of the sources above the rate came from — the quickest way to explain a number that looks wrong.
A worked example
On a Project's Team tab, each Position shows its rate, with an indicator next to it showing which source the rate came from. In this project:
Margaret Hamilton — Project Manager. The rate is 130 US$/h, taken from the Rate
card's Project Manager rate. It's the Position's Role that sets this, not Margaret's
own primary Role — the source indicator next to the rate confirms it came from the Rate card.
An unnamed Designer position. No Person is assigned yet, but because the Position
has a Role, it's priced from the Rate card's Designer rate — 111/h.
Abbie Crosby — no Role on the Position. Here the Position doesn't specify a Role, so
the assigned Person's primary Role determines the rate.
To price one Position differently, set a position-specific rate on it — that overrides the Rate card.
