Cost Rate
Each user in Unanet can have a cost rate associated with their user id at the person level. This is accomplished via the Administrative Person Profile >> Rates tab. These relationships are time bound (thus, you can have multiple person level cost rates over time). The cost rates are used in calculations on various reports.
Expressed as Hourly Rate
This value is expressed in your systems base currency as an hourly rate. If you have salaried employees, you may compute an hourly rate equivalent, for example, by dividing their annual salary by 2080 (if that meets your companies needs). To help minimize rounding issues, you may want to consider using as much precision as you can (e.g. if this user is an exempt employee and you are trying to calculate an hourly equivalent you may want to consider using up to 5 positions to the right of the decimal).
Person level cost rates may be overridden using project assignments or project plans on a project by project basis. When a project assigner/planner creates a project assignment/plan the source for the cost rate may be either:
Person Rate -- the person level rate (applicable to the specific work date) will be recorded with time entries
Labor Category Rate -- the rate associated with either the master or project level labor category will be recorded with time entries.
Project level labor categories can have their own rate options as well, including:
Master Labor Category Rate -- the rate designated at the master labor category level would be the default value for a project level labor category.
Project Level Override -- the master labor category rate can be overridden at the project level such that Labor Category 1 could have a $100 rate on Project A and a $125 rate on Project B.
No Labor Category Rate -- you also have the option of not using rates at all.
Custom Override Rate -- a custom rate can also be provided which will be recorded with time entries
Note: When Dilution is enabled, Labor Category Rate and Custom Rate Overrides will be ignored for users having the Exempt Classification (with the exception of People Plans -- see note below).
Cost Rates Overrides on People Plans and User Classification Note
Cost Rate overrides specified on People Plans will only be reflected in reporting output for those users having a classification of Non-Exempt and Non-Employee in the following cases:
-- Dilution is enabled and the Use Plan Cost Rates for Dilution (unatime.cost.dilution.use_plan_rates) property is disabled
Cost Rate overrides specified on People Plans will also be reflected in reporting output for those users having a classification of Exempt in the following cases:
-- Dilution is disabled
-- Dilution is enabled and the Use Plan Cost Rates for Dilution (unatime.cost.dilution.use_plan_rates) property is enabled.
Who can view Rates?
Only Administrators and non-administrative users that have the Cost Rate Manager role can view cost rate information within Unanet.
Note that a users ability to view cost related fields is governed by each users Cost Rate Manager role assignment. Further, the Allow Cost Rate Edit (unasource.allow_cost_rate_edit) property can be used to control whether these fields are view only or editable.
Rate Update Note
When modifying or removing person profile rate entries or Assignment rate entries, do note that all non-LOCKED/non-EXTRACTED time entries that overlap the date range of the rates being changed, will be updated to reflect the resulting rate information.