Rate Cards

A rate card supplies the bill rate and cost rate applied to a time entry. Several may apply at once, and the most specific wins.

How a card matches

A card can be qualified by resource, scope, activity and role. Leaving a column empty means "any", so a card with everything empty is the fallback that applies when nothing more specific does.

Specificity scoring

Where several cards match, each is scored and the highest wins. The weightings are fixed and worth knowing, because they tell you which qualification is treated as most authoritative:

• Resource — 8
• Scope — 4
• Activity — 2
• Role — 1

Resource outranks everything: a rate agreed for a named person applies even where a project rate exists. Scope beats activity and role, so a rate negotiated for a particular client project overrides a general rate for that kind of work.

Because the weights work like binary place values, a single more-significant qualification always beats any number of less-significant ones. A card matching only on resource beats one matching on scope, activity and role together.

Building a set

Start with one fallback card covering everything, then add specific cards only where a genuine agreement exists. A small set resolves predictably; a large one produces rates nobody can explain to a client.

Testing

Before going live, record a test entry for each combination that matters and confirm the resolved rate. The cases to check are where two cards are close in specificity — that is where a surprise lives.

Changing rates

Remember that rates are stored on entries at the moment they are recorded. Editing a card changes future entries only. If a new agreed rate should apply from the start of the month and entries already exist, those entries need correcting deliberately — the card edit will not reach back.