Rate sheets provide LiquidPlanner with the data necessary to calculate dollar values for your logged and remaining hours. Workspace administrators can create and edit rate sheets by clicking the User Menu > Settings > Data Customization > Billing Rules or Pay Rules.
LiquidPlanner has two different rate sheets:
On the Pay Rules sheet you load pay rates for your workspace members (by person or team):
On the Billing Rules sheet, you load billing rates:
Rate sheet data is used to calculate valuable financial metrics in your Analytics reports, timesheet exports and dashboards. Rate sheets are important for project costing and identifying budget risks in your projects.
Here are rate sheet calculations in a project report that was generated via the Analytics Tab:
Here are rate sheet calculations in a timesheet export:
Rate sheet data can be exposed in the Analytics Table widget.
Only workspace administrators can:
Dashboard Editors cannot complete any of the above actions unless they are also an administrator in the workspace. This ensures that administrators can control the audience that sees financial data.
A rate sheet consists of a series of rate rules, one per row. Each rule specifies the rate that should be applied when certain conditions are met for hours logged or hours remaining. The conditions can be any combination of Client, Project, Activity or Person.
The order of rules matters! For example, for a given time entry, LiquidPlanner runs down the rate sheet rules from top to bottom until it finds the first rule that matches the time entry conditions. It applies the rate for the first rule match only, even if there might be another rule match further down the list.
To create a new rule:
Here are some things to keep in mind when adding new rules:
Be thoughtful about editing or deleting existing rate rules! When you edit or delete a rule, the change is applied retroactively to all existing time entries.
To prevent inadvertent rate sheet edits, you can’t edit an existing rule directly via the user interface. You must export your rate sheet, make the edits in the spreadsheet and then import the rate sheet back in.
If you have a significant number of rate rules, you may find it easier to create your rules in a spreadsheet and then import them all at once. Begin by creating a template to input your rates. Open a rate sheet (Billing Rules or Pay Rules) and click the Export link at the upper right corner. This will give you a .csv file to use as a template for creating rate rules.
Open a rate sheet (Billing Rules or Pay Rules) and click the Export link at the upper right corner to export existing rates. This will give you a .csv file to use as a template for editing existing rate rules. When changing rates, be sure to insert a new rule with an accurate effective date (do not reuse rule names).
The “Important Notes” section of the .csv provides a few simple steps for creating rate rules using the template. The “Workspace Data” section provides the total list of options for each field, Client, Project, Activity, Member. Copy and paste the relevant plan information to specify rates by condition. Build out the spreadsheet and re-save in .csv format.
To import rates:
Related Articles
Project Costing
Analytics Roll-Up Reports
Exporting Time Tracking Data
Create Activities and Link to Tasks
Adding Members to Teams
Dashboards
Expenses