Edition: Business, Enterprise

User-level: Director, System Administrator

Previous steps: Setting up your default rates

This article is designed to explain all the different types of rates and rate groups you will use throughout Synergy.

Create and update the rates for staff charge-outs, supplier and subcontractors, inspections, office expense items, staff cash and travel items. Use variations to apply a special discount for the new year for a rate, or a discount for a selected project.

The rates and rate groups can be accessed by going to Settings > Financial > Rates.

Tips:

Rates can be used when estimating budgets when entering expenses, displayed on reports, or listed on the project invoice sent out to your clients. Create staff rates to control the charge-out value for the work your staff perform for projects, or set up the markup % or charge-out value for the expense rate types. Cash and travel rate types are used for staff expense reimbursement, office expense items are used to charge time for internal tasks to a project, and supplier/subcontractor expenses are used to on-charge these expenses to a project with a markup value applied.

Rates can be updated to adjust price changes for each quarter or year. Add a standard variation and enter an effective date for when the new charge-out rate or markup % value will be applied to entered transactions. If using the Business or Enterprise Synergy products, then you can also vary the rate by applying discounts/surcharges for selected projects.

Control the standard set of values that work on project invoices is charged out or marked up to for your clients. Use variations to apply special pricing (discounts or surcharges) to selected projects.

Rate groups in Synergy allow you to categorise your rates and group them together. The Standard rate group is like the master record, all rates that are created will need to exist on this group. This is where the standard costs are calculated from.

From there, you can create other rate groups. Each rate group can have its own selection of rates, and those rates can have their own separate values. Changing the rates on one rate group won't impact other rate groups.

Some common uses of rate groups is to have a new rate group for each financial or calendar year. Or if you have a client that you have negotiated special rates for, you can create a rate group for them which will be used on their projects.

To view the rate groups you have,

There are several types of rates in Synergy; Staff, Inspection, Office Expenses, Travel Expenses, Cash Expenses, Supplier, and Subcontractor. Each rate functions differently, and will be used in different parts of Synergy.

Staff rates in Synergy determine charge-out values for project invoicing and are linked to employees via job roles, not individual names. This simplifies management during staff transitions. For example, Jill Lockhart may have rates for both 'architect' and 'senior architect' roles, reflecting her work on different projects. Role-based rates can be shared across multiple staff, ensuring flexibility and consistency.

A staff rate has two values, Standard cost, and Charge value.

Tips:

*This feature is available with the Synergy Business or Enterprise products.*

Create an inspection rate to charge the client a flat charge out fee for a site inspection or visit. Multiple types of inspection rates to allow for a different charge out value for CBD / metro visits ($250), country / rural ($400), and interstate ($600) etc. Selected staff members can be approved to use inspection rates within their timesheets. The staff can enter an exact number of hours for the visit, and the client is still charged the flat daily fee for the work.

When creating the rate, define what the internal cost is for completing a site visit, and what the client will be charged for the work. The charge value should include the profit you want to make for the site visit. Work out the cost for completing the visit (i.e. hours by the staff member, mileage etc.) then add the required profit (i.e. 20% target profit) to create your charge-out fee for the inspection rate.

Create a rate for each of the standard inspection rates that you quote on a proposal. The actual charge-out rate can be changed in a project to be discounted or surcharged to the client if required.

Inspection rates use a charge value entered by you, with the costs being calculated from that, like with staff rates:

e.g. CBD, metro, country / rural, interstate. Consider having an inspection rate for a full day visit, a 1/2 day visit, or for the different types of work completed in a site visit.

Tips:

This rate is created to control the staff expense markup percentage for staff cash expenses. This markup % is applied to the cash expense when it is allocated against a project to be on-charged to a client. i.e. the staff member is claiming for a flight which costs $500, and the cash expense markup is 10%. The cash expense transaction will be marked up on the project to $550 ($500 expense plus the $50 markup).

The cost of a cash expense transaction is determined by the value that the staff enters when they enter their expense. The charge value of the expense is calculated as the entered cost x markup percentage.

There can be many different cash expense markup rates in Synergy. Create a different rate for each type of project work you complete. I.e. On some projects you can markup the cash expense by 10%, another is 15%, and on others, you cannot markup the item which means a 0% markup rate is required. (Note: If you do not markup the expense, then you are not making any profit on that item).

Tips:

Travel expenses are used via time and expenses for fixed cost expenses e.g. mileage reimbursement per KM's / miles, road tolls, per diem or days away from home allowance, daily accommodation allowance etc. Staff enter travel expense rates when they are claiming fixed expenses for reimbursement.

Travel expense item rates allow you to define the original cost of the item and the charge-out value shown on project invoices. The staff enters the distance they're claiming, and the cost and charge value are calculated based on the cost and charge value of the selected rate.

e.g. Mileage has a cost of $0.66 per KM / Mile which is reimbursed to the staff member at this value for work trips. However, when the expense is shown against a project, it has the markup applied to be $1.00 per KM / Mile. Marking up the expense for project work ensures that you make a profit on the item.

Tip: The rate 'name' is what staff see when entering expenses, and clients can see on hourly rate invoices. Make sure you put a clear description so that your internal staff and clients know what the expense relates too.

Create a list of fixed cost items that you produce in your office for projects. These items can be used to on-charge the cost of this internal task to your client on a project invoice. e.g. Printing black & white, printing colour, photocopying, binding, presentation kits, or survey equipment hire per day rate. Try creating a different office expense item rate for each paper size or document type that your office will print, photocopy or bind. e.g. letter, A3, A4, B1, A0 etc.

When entering Office expenses, the staff will enter a quantity of units. This is multiplied by the cost and charge value of the rate to determine the cost and charge of the expense.

Tip: If the item is purchased through an external third party, try using supplier expense items instead.

Supplier rates ensure that bills automatically have a markup applied when they are disbursed to a project. Supplier expenses are project-related costs like airfares, printing, accommodation, equipment hire, audit reports, inspections, or building supplies.

For example, a supplier provides you with an invoice for $800 for 2 night's accommodation costs for a staff member on a site visit. When the supplier expense is disbursed to a project from a bill, you select the appropriate supplier rate, eg 10%. This results in the expense allocated to the project being automatically marked-up by 10% to $880.

Supplier rates use a markup percentage to determine the value of the transaction:

Synergy organisations are created with a 10% markup and 0% markup rates. Update these rates to the required standard values for your projects, or add an extra markup as required.

Tip: If the same item is often purchased via a supplier, try using supplier expense items instead to track the changes in cost for the item over time.

Subcontractor rates are used when disbursing a contractor bill to a project. For example, a subcontractor provides you with a quote for $5000, and when the subcontractor expense is entered the markup selected is 10%. This results in the expense allocated to the project being automatically marked-up to $5500.

Like with supplier rates, subcontractor rates use a markup percentage to determine the value of the resulting transaction:

Synergy organisations are created with a 10% markup and 0% markup rates. Update these rates to the required standard values for your projects, or add extra markup as required.

Tip: If you need a markup % to be different for just one project, try adding a variation instead of adding another markup rate.

A variation is an adjustment to the value of a rate. Any time you update or change the value of a rate, a new variation is created.

You can view a list of variations for a rate in the Rate History. To access the Rate History:

In the Rate History, you’ll see:

Each rate variation has an Effective Date, which defines when that variation begins. Any transactions dated after the Effective Date will use the new rate value.

To update a rate and create a new variation:

If you need to create a new rate, you can do that from the rates list.

e.g. Adding a new staff rate

Tip: You can't have two rates with the same name; rate names need to be unique. If you are trying to create a rate that already exists, you will get an error. Try looking at the list of inactive rates by clicking on the 'Show inactive rates' option to see if the one you want is already there.

Rates cannot be deleted if they have already been used in a project budget, or allocated to a time or expense transaction. Mark the rate as 'inactive' to stop it appearing in dropdown lists for future use.

Mark the rate(s) as 'inactive' by:

1) Go to : Settings > Financial > Rates.

2) The rate is inactive and unavailable for future use. This will not impact any of the transactions or budget rows that are already using this rate.

Tip: When using the 'all' rate statuses filter, the inactive rates are shown with a strikeout style applied.

To create a new rate group:

If you need to rename a custom rate group:

A rate group cannot be deleted, so if you need to prevent a rate group from being used, you will need to make it inactive.

The rate group will now be inactive and no longer be able to be selected when choosing rate groups. For projects that still use it, it will act as normal.

In some cases, you may need to reverse a change to a rate. This can only be done if the rate variation has not been used on any invoiced or written-off transactions.

To undo a rate variation:

*This feature is available with the Synergy Business or Enterprise products.*

If you want to create a variation of a rate that will be used for just one project, you can use specific rates for that. See this article on Project and Stage specific rates.

After reviewing rates and rate groups, you will now be able to create your own and update any existing ones.

Where to next?

Creating a new billable project

What other features does this relate to?

Standard cost calculations