Announcing staff based billing in Zoho Projects

Announcing staff based billing in Zoho Projects

Zoho Projects announced its staff based billing feature recently. I would like to throw some light on it today. Before the launch of staff based billing, we had project-hours based billing only. In the project-hours based billing, the user rate was common to everyone in the project. Now, with the help of staff-hours based billing, different user rates can be given to different users in different roles and make project billing more effective.

Advantages of staff based billing over project hour based billing

Staff based billing clearly gives a flexibility over the conventional hour based billing. Your clients might not have the same set of expectations. The way they would like to get their project billed, differs. Some might want all the details of the tasks and bugs resolved by a user in the invoice. A few might want the consolidated effort of a user in hours and a few might want different user rates for different roles or persons in order to handle their expenditure on the project effectively. Having said that, staff based project billing is a definite winner. It will help you assign different user rates to the people in your team based on their efficiency, experience, and role.

Use case
George runs a consultancy firm. He sets a constant user rate for billing irrespective of his employees' experience and their role in the project. 
So, (total number of logged hours in the project * rate per hour)  is the bill amount. 

Role Employee Name Project Name Rate Per Hour Time logged
Employee Amelia Rose Marketing goals Q4-16 $50 80
Manager Dan Flinwood Marketing goals Q4 -16 $50 30
Contractor Ellen Stuart Marketing goals Q4 -16 $50 30

As you can see, Amelia Rose is an employee, Dan Flinwood is a manager, and Ellen Stuart is a contractor in the project Marketing goals Q4-16. All the three share the same Rate Per Hour ($50)
Bill amount      = (Total number of logged hours * rate per hours)
                        = (140 * 50)
                        = $7000

After the launch of staff based billing in Zoho Projects, George sets different rates for the users based on their skills, experience and productivity. Now,  [ ((total number of hours logged by user1) * (rate per hour for user1)) + ((total number of hours logged by user2) * (rate per hour for user2)) + ....+ ((total number of hours logged by userN) * (rate per hour for userN)) ] is the bill amount.

Role Employee Name Project Name Rate Per Hour Time Logged
Employee Amelia Rose Marketing Goals Q4-16 $35 80
Manager Dan Flinwood Marketing Goals Q4-16 $50 30
Contractor Ellen Stuart Marketing Goals Q4-16 $20 30

Now, with the flexibility, he sets $35 for an employee, $50 for a manager, and $20 for a contractor.
Bill amount      = [(80*35)+(30*50)+(30*20)]
                        = [(2800) + (1500) + (600)]
                        = $4900

There are a few perks in addition to the staff based billing in Zoho Projects. 
You can also..

Try these features out and write back to us at support@zohoprojects.com.
You can also leave your feedback by commenting here. We hope you had a great Thanksgiving there and we, at Zoho Projects, can't thank you enough for all the love support. #ManyHappyProjects

Cheers,
Kiruthika.



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