Projects and billing

Overview

Learn how to set up your current projects and their phases.

Follow a work plan

  1. Make a list of your active projects and phases.
  2. Enter general information for each project and each of its phases into the Project Command Center ( > Manage > Project Command Center).

For each project, on the General tab > Project Info subtab, do the following: Enter the project description. If using project IDs, enter the project ID. If using departments, select the department from the list.

For each phase, on the General tab > Project Info subtab, do the following: Enter the phase description. If using phase IDs, enter the phase ID. If using departments, select the department from the list.

  1. Build the work breakdown structure.

You start setting up a project by building the project work breakdown structure:

Phases

Add as many phases to a project as you need. You can create a hierarchy of phases. You can add as many as six levels of phases to a project, although it is typical to limit the number of subphases to two or three.

You may choose to use lower-level phases to define specific project tasks.

Invoice groups

Determine if you want to bill a project with one invoice or multiple invoices.

To bill phases on separate invoices, set up invoice groups.

Billing groups

To subtotal and summarize phases on an invoice, set up a billing group.

You may want to group and subtotal all preliminary phases or all departments working on the same task.
  1. Enter the project and phase information, including the project type, billing type, and billing group.

Billing types and rates

Billing rate tables determine the billing rates and amounts for labor, expenses, and consultants. As part of setting up a project, you select the billing rate table to use.

  1. Make a list of the billing rates and markup percents that you plan to use for labor, expenses, and consultants on projects.
  2. For each project, on the Project Info tab > Billing subtab, select a billing type. If you are billing sales tax for the project, select the Apply Sales Tax check box, and enter the tax code and tax rate.
  3. For each phase, on the Project Info tab > Billing subtab, if any of the following are different from that of the project, select the correct option for the phase: billing type, rate table, tax rate and code. If you have not set up the rate table you want to use, click the button in the Rate Table field and set it up.

For fee-based billing types, if the fee on the contract does not include labor, expense, or consultants, select the appropriate Bill as Time & Expense check boxes.

Billing rates

You can calculate rates as a cost markup, a standard billing rate, or a pass-through cost. You can also override your actual cost rate and employee type for billing purposes, or set a maximum cost.

If you bill overtime or other premium hours, you can set up a premium markup percent.

You can set up a rate table to calculate billing rates using one of the following:

  • Standard markups
  • A standard billing rate (also called a flat rate)
  • A combination of markups and standard billing rates

Billing rate tables

You set up a billing rate table to indicate how you want to price specific labor, expenses, and consultants for billing to a client.

With Ajera, you can set up billing rate tables for the following types of rate calculations:

  • Including overhead costs and profit markup in the billing rate
  • Marking up actual cost by specified percentages

You can set overall markups or set up billing rates by:

  • Employee, employee type, and activity for labor costs
  • Activity and vendor for expenses and consultant costs

Create as many billing rate tables as you need to reflect billing arrangements with clients on particular projects. If the rate changes mid-project, you can specify multiple date ranges for the same table.

  1. Make a list of your billing rate tables with information such as name, activity, billing rate, override cost rate, maximum, direct personnel expense (DPE) %, overhead %, and profit % for your labor, expenses, and consultant rates. List any mark-up % and pass-through costs.
  2. Enter your billing rate information. List the dates when the rates are applicable.
  3. Verify your information by clicking (Reports) and selecting Rate Table.

Markups

For your company to make an overall profit, you must increase your company's various costs when you bill the client. In Ajera, you begin building your rate table by defining the general way you want to increase, or mark up, all costs on a project. For example, you may want to mark up all direct labor costs by 30% to cover DPE, 150% to cover overhead cost, and an additional 10% for profit.

In addition, you can identify exceptions to these general markups for a specific cost. For example, a principal’s DPE and overhead cost may be higher than your company average so you may want to mark up those hours by 40% for DPE, 160% for overhead, and 10% for profit.

Note:

You cannot delete a billing rate table if it is currently being used for a project, but you can choose to make the table inactive. An inactive table does not appear in the list of tables, but it is still used for existing projects.
  1. Set up an overhead project if you want to track how billable your employees are.

Overhead projects
  1. Make a list of the stages you want to track. For example, if you are using departments, you might want to track costs by department.
  2. Enter each stage as a phase in the project into the Project Command Center. For example, enter each department as a phase.
  3. For each phase, select Overhead as the billing type on the Project Info tab > Billing subtab.
  4. Enter any additional information as needed.
  1. Verify your information by clicking (Reports) and selecting Project List or Phase List.