Project Billing with the Staff Hours Method in Zoho Projects

Project Billing with the Staff Hours Method in Zoho Projects

The Staff Hours Billing Method in Zoho Projects allows you to bill your clients based on the actual time spent by each team member on a project, at the rate set for each user. This is useful for projects where different skill sets are needed and service is charged based on the user's rate per hour, such as in a consulting service project.

A project manager, a consultant, and a trainer involved in the project have different skillsets, and they have different billing rates for their work. If they log 10, 20, and 15 hours, respectively, with hourly rates of $100, $50, and $75, the total project invoicing bill will be $3,125 (10 hours * $100/hour + 20 hours * $50/hour + 15 hours * $75/hour).

To use the Staff Hours billing method, you first need to assign a rate to each team member.

You can do this by navigating to your project, clicking   in the top band > Users, then Add User. Select the User and enter their rate in the Rate Per Hour field. If the user is not in your portal, you can click New Users and enter their details, including their hourly rate.



Once you have assigned rates to all of your team members, you can choose Based On Staff Hours Billing Method when editing the project.

Also, if the hourly paid cost of a team member changes during the project, you can update the cost per hour and specify an effective date. The planned and actual costs of the tasks, milestones, and project will change from this date and the planned vs actual will reflect this change.

For example, a project manager in the previous example had an hourly paid cost of $50. He was promoted, and his hourly paid cost is now $60 per hour. You can update it by going to your project, clicking   > Users, hovering over the user's profile, and clicking . Then, enter the new cost in the Cost Per Hour field. In the Cost Effective From Date field, you would specify the date on which the new cost will take effect and click Update.



Refer here to learn more about how to use Staff Hours in Billing Method.

If you have any questions, do leave a comment below or mail to us at: support@zohoprojects.com.

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