Set staff cost and charge-out rates

This guide shows you how to set cost and charge-out rates for your staff members. Setting these rates is essential for tracking job profitability and ensuring you bill your clients accurately.

Your staff members have two key rates in AtomicSam. The Cost Rate is your internal cost for an hour of their work, used to calculate profit. The Charge-Out Rate is the amount you bill clients for that hour. Keeping these rates updated helps you understand your business's financial performance.

Before you start

• You must have Admin or Owner permissions to view and edit cost and charge-out rates.
• Setting cost rates and viewing profitability reports requires a Pro or Ultra plan.
• Determine the hourly cost of your staff member. This should include salary, benefits, and any other overheads.

Set a staff member's rates

You set rates on each staff member's profile. This becomes their default rate for all new time entries.

1. Navigate to Settings → Staff.
2. Click the name of the staff member you want to edit.
3. Scroll to the Rates section on their profile page.
4. In the Cost Rate field, enter the staff member's hourly internal cost to your business. This value is always kept confidential.
5. In the Default Charge-Out Rate field, enter the standard hourly rate you bill to clients for this person's work.
6. Click Save Staff Member.

💡 Tip: To calculate a basic hourly cost rate for a salaried staff member, divide their annual salary by the number of working hours in a year. For a 40-hour work week, this is typically 2,080 hours. For a more accurate figure, factor in overheads like insurance, equipment, and other benefits.

How rates affect jobs

Cost rates and charge-out rates serve different purposes. Understanding the difference is key to managing your jobs effectively.

Override a charge-out rate for a specific job

Sometimes a particular job or client agreement requires a different rate. You can override the default charge-out rate on a job-by-job basis without changing the staff member's default setting.

1. Navigate to Jobs and open the job you want to update.
2. On the job's main page, find the Staff section.
3. You will see a list of assigned staff members and their default charge-out rates.
4. Click the pencil icon or Edit next to the staff member's rate.
5. Enter the new rate in the Charge-Out Rate field.
6. Click Save or checkmark to confirm the change for this job.

ℹ️ Good to know: Changing a rate on a job only affects that job. The staff member's default rate remains unchanged for all other work. Cost rates cannot be changed on a per-job basis.

Good to know

• Cost rates are confidential. Staff members with standard permissions cannot see their own cost rate or the cost rates of others.
• When you update a staff member's rates, the new rates apply only to new time entries logged from that point forward. They do not retroactively change any existing time entries.
• If you set a charge-out rate to 0, any time that staff member logs will be considered non-billable by default.
• If a staff member does not have a default charge-out rate set, their time entries will be logged with a rate of 0 until a rate is added to their profile or the job.

What's next

• Track job profitability
• Log and manage time entries
• Create and send invoices
• Manage staff permissions