In this article you will see how to set the base rates of your organisation so as to automatically supply the values on the jobs that are In Progress or Completed status.

The values that you specify under the Default Rates section is a combination of Default Charges and Default Costs.

The Default Charges is the basic amount a customer pays to you for the hours your team has worked on-site including the travel to the site. It is calculated per technician assigned to the job.

The Default Cost is the amount you pay as an organisation towards your workforce.

In this article, you will see how to:

Access the cost and charge rates

Define the labour charges

Define the labour costs

STEP 1 Your company's default costs and charges can be set at Settings -> Admin Settings -> Rates.

The default labour charges only account for the charges related to the labour hours (combination of On site time + travel) under different operating hours such as business hours, after hours and holidays.
The amount specified here is referenced when a job is created for a customer and the customer is to be charged in one of the preferred charging models, such as only for tasks, or only the labour hours, or for all tasks as well as the number of labour hours. If the model involves labour hours, then these charges are useful in automatically determining the payment per technician per hour basis.

STEP 2 Define the default charges to be applied for the travel time and time dedicated on-site.
You can set up three types of charges, each corresponding to different types of working hours.
Once the charges are entered, save the changes.

These charges only account for the labour hours dedicated towards a job per assigned person.

An example of how the Default Rates automatically apply to the added work logs, and are shown under Unit Charge and Charge in the job inspector, see the example below:

While the default rates save you the time of entering the basic charges every time, you can edit them whenever the charges in real-time differ.

The Default Cost is the amount being paid out to your workforce and calculated per hour per assignee. You can view the cost figures in the Job Inspector alongside the charges, but the costs as such do not contribute to any line item in Invoices. The cost figures are means to compare and analyse the profit you're making against the charges earned from labour hours.

STEP 3 Define the base cost of your workforce to be calculated per hour basis for each person for regular business hours and overtimes or holidays.

You can view the costs on the job inspector in addition to the charges (as was shown above) by selecting the Cost and Unit Cost fields in the display filter.

NOTE: Other figures involved in completing tasks must be defined in the respective Task Template located under Settings ->Task Library, and similarly, the costs for materials or parts of your company's Inventory must be specified in Settings -> Inventory Library.
​Both the Task Library and the Inventory Library are available on the Professional and Enterprise editions.

Any additional costs can be directly filled up when completing jobs in the job inspector under Work logs -> Expenses.

The standard charge templates cannot be edited (tagged as SYSTEM), but you have the flexibility to create your own charge templates to suit the business terms and relationships you have with your customers and to match up the costs of a region.

In a Charge Template, you can set the labour charges that include rates of your team's work during the business hours, after hour, and holidays.
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It also considers the task rates and inventory costs, however, you cannot enter the rates for tasks or inventory directly on to the charge template.

They are handled slightly differently -- the rates for tasks are drawn from the charges specified under the Task Templates in Settings -> Admin settings -> Task library.

Here is an example of task templates and their charges:

But, through the Charge Template you can customise those rates by supplying a multiplier that will adjust the actual charge of the task when you choose the Charge Template for a job having that task. This comes handy when you have to apply different charges for the same task to different customers or different scenarios.
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Similarly, the rates for the items used in a job are drawn from the Inventory in Settings -> Admin settings -> Inventory library, and within the Charge Template you can specify a suitable multiplier by which the base rate will be adjusted for the items used.

Here is an example of inventory items and their charges:

Once you have created a set of Charge Templates, you can select the most appropriate charge template when actioning a job. When you do so, the rates will be automatically calculated when your team logs in their work hours, tasks and inventories from the field.

STEP 1 Navigate to the Charge templates from Settings -> Admin settings -> Charge templates and prepare a new charge template that is specific to your customer, industry, specialised task and so on.

The charges shown here are already pre-filled as a hint so you don't have to go back and forth to check what the default rates are in Settings -> Default Rates. To set up the Default Rates or to change them, please see Define Base Rates for Work Hours.

Let's see how to associate the custom charge template with a new job. In the Job inspector, you will find the custom charge template is available in the dropdown list. Select to associate the costs and charges defined in the charge template with the new job.

IMPORTANT: Please ensure that you have selected the right charge template before you click the CREATE button on new job because in order to maintain reliability of financial numbers, you will not be able to change the charge template later irrespective of the job status.

If your company uses a particular charge template quite often, then you can set that charge template as a Default Charge Template.

Once the charge template is set as default, you will see the rates and charges defined in that charge template automatically apply to every job that is created.

Next, see how to create a job and apply the charges applicable to the customer for the works done in the job, as explained in the article Create a Job.

Learn how to define the tax rates applicable to your business to enable charge calculations inclusive of taxes across all financials in Loc8

Specify the tax rates that will apply in the sales and services of your business as per the applicable tax rates in the state or country you operate in.

Once tax rates have been defined you may select a default that applies system wide for all new Quotes, Jobs or Invoices, or alternatively anyone in your workforce working with charges may simply select the required tax rate from the list on a per-line-item basis.

STEP 1 Your tax configurations are available as part of the Financial section on your Company settings. Go to Settings -> Admin Settings-> Company and scroll down to the Financial section.

STEP 2 In the Financial section, the tax rate is set to None by default. You can add your applicable new tax rates along side it.
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STEP 3 You can set any of your added tax rates as DEFAULT to apply on all new Quotes, Jobs or Invoices.

Your tax rates are set.
Next, see how to Apply Tax Rates to the Charges.