Billing Labor Category Tables

Use billing labor category tables to assign hourly billing rates to labor categories, which are used to calculate the labor on project invoices.

Labor categories represent standard staff roles such as project manager, supervisor, or architect (different types of work). Using labor categories eliminates the need to assign a billing rate individually for each employee. Instead, you assign a labor category for each employee on the Employment Details tab in the Employees hub, and the labor category is tied to a billing rate that you enter for it in a billing labor category table. In the Labor section on the Rates tab of a project's billing terms, you select By category in the Method field, and assign a labor category table in the Rate Table field.

You set up labor categories in Settings > Labels and Lists > Lists. You can also add a new labor category on the fly when you create a billing labor category table. However labor categories added on the fly are not available to use in other labor category tables. These labor categories apply only to the labor category table from which you added it.

The billing rates in the labor category tables are used to calculate an employee's billable labor that is entered on a timesheet if both of the following apply:

  • The employee's labor hours are entered for a project that bills labor by labor category (By category is selected in the Method field in the Labor section of the Rates tab in Billing Terms for the project).
  • No override table is specified for the project's billing terms in the Labor section of the Rates tab in Billing Terms, or the employee is not included in the override table that is specified in the Labor section of the Rates tab in Billing Terms.

You can also use a billing labor category table to override the default billing category that is set up for an employee in the Employees hub. However, a better practice is to use a billing labor override table to override an employee's default labor category. Whichever method you choose, be consistent and use that method whenever overriding a category.

If you use Resource Planning, you can use these rates to set up plans for new projects.