Enforcing Zero Values in Price List Lines

You can define cost prices, billing prices, intercompany prices, markup percentages, and overtime charges. You can assign a price list to jobs.

Maconomy allows you to explicitly enforce a value of 0 in price list line fields. Enforced zero values are treated as valid and final, preventing fallback derivation from sources such as general price lists, employee cards, employee categories, or activity setup.

Previously, entering 0 in a price list line was treated as undefined, and Maconomy continued to search for values using the standard price derivation algorithm. With zero enforcement, you can ensure that 0 is applied as the intended value. This functionality is available in both general price lists and job-specific price lists.

Supported Fields

Zero enforcement is available for the following fields:

• Cost
• Billing Price
• Standard Billing Price
• Base Salary Rate
• Overhead Rate
• Intercompany Price

These fields are added by default only in Setup > Job Cost > Price Lists. They can also be added in the column choose in Job Cost > Jobs > Job Home > Prices.

Price Calculation Algorithm

Maconomy applies a price calculation algorithm that searches for fallback values across sources such as general price lists, employee cards, employee categories, and activity setup.

• If a field is set to 0 and the corresponding Zero checkbox is not selected, the system treats the 0 as undefined and continues fallback derivation.
• If the Zero checkbox is selected, 0 is treated as the final value, and fallback derivation is blocked.

For time activities, cost can be calculated from multiple fields, including Cost, Base Salary Rate, and Overhead Rate. To ensure a total cost of 0, all three fields must be enforced as zero.

Applicable Scenarios

Enforcing zero values is useful in the following situations:

• Unpaid absence or unpaid overtime

  Prevent fallback cost from the employee card by enforcing Zero Cost.

• Trainees or roles with no cost allocation

  Track time for roles such as interns without applying cost. Enforce Zero Cost to avoid fallback pricing.

• Enforced zero billing for selected activities

  Even when an activity is marked as invoicable, you can set Zero Billing Price in the price list to ensure no billing is applied (for example, internal meetings or training).

• Administrative tasks

  Use zero enforcement to prevent fallback pricing for activities that should not be costed or billed.

• Recalculation based on enforced values

  When recalculation occurs in time sheets, expense sheets, job budgets, or journals, Maconomy applies the current enforced zero setup. The system does not retain earlier values.

• Multi-field enforcement for time activities

  For time activities, enforcing Zero Cost alone is not sufficient. You must also enforce Zero Base Salary Rate and Zero Overhead Rate to ensure the final cost remains zero.

Behavior

Each relevant field includes a Zero checkbox (for example, Zero Cost for Cost).

• When the checkbox is selected, 0 is enforced and no fallback derivation occurs.
• When the checkbox is not selected, 0 is treated as undefined, and fallback logic applies.
• The checkbox can only be selected if the field’s value is exactly 0. An error is shown if a non-zero value is entered while the checkbox is selected.

For time activities, the system expects Zero Cost, Zero Base Salary Rate, and Zero Overhead Rate to be enforced together. If any are omitted, fallback logic may apply, resulting in a non-zero cost.

Example Calculations

In this example, cost and billing price are defined per hour, with an 8-hour entry:

Scenario	Cost	Base Salary Rate	Overhead Rate	Billing Price	Result
Checkboxes not selected	Derived: 0	Derived: 30	Derived: 20	Derived: 100	Cost: 400 (8 x [30 + 20] Billing: 800 (8 x 100)
Checkboxes selected	Enforced: 0	Enforced: 0	Enforced: 0	Enforced: 0	Cost: 0 Billing: 0

Note: For time activities, ensure that Zero Cost, Zero Base Salary Rate, and Zero Overhead Rate are all enforced to achieve a total cost of 0.