A day rate is a set number of hours and amount charged to a client for a task or activity, regardless of the actual hours worked in a day. In BQE CORE, you can set up day rates using the Bill Rate and Minimum Hours value for an activity. You can also define a day rate on a fee schedule (services).
How you report day rate activity on an invoice depends on whether actual time worked is greater or less than the stipulated time. When actual hours worked are greater than the client hours (billing hours), you might want to show the extra hours on the invoice. Conversely, when actual hours are less than client hours, you might want to hide this information.
To set up a day rate for your company:
- Open the Activity Items screen from Settings > Time & Expenses.
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Click Add and enter the required information for the activity. You can name this activity such that it is easy to identify the day-rate activity item in a list.
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After saving the record, click Detail on its row to go to the detail view.
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On the General tab, enter 8 in the Min Hours field (this day rate is based on a standard 8-hour working day).
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Now enter the Bill Rate by dividing the negotiated day rate by the minimum hours. Example: If the day rate is $1,200, then the Bill Rate is $150 per hour (1,200 / 8 = 150).
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Click Save.
When you select this day-rate activity while recording time, CORE carries its minimum hours and bill rate to the time record. It adjusts the client hours to the minimum hours and applies the bill rate to calculate the bill amount. You can just enter your actual hours; CORE calculates the cost of the activity and then saves the time entry.
On the invoice, if actual hours are greater than client hours, (say an 8-hour day-rate activity took 10 hours to complete), the extra 2 hours do not print on the invoice. Alternatively, if actual hours are 6 and client hours are 8, you do not want to show that it took less time to complete the work.
When you want to show the extra hours on an invoice, split the time entry into two. Enter your hours, let CORE adjust client hours to the minimum, then make sure actual hours is the same 8 hours. Next, create a second entry for the same activity and enter 2 in both client hours and actual hours fields, then mark the entry as non-billable. This creates a separate item on the invoice and prints ‘No Charge’ on it.