A Service line normally carries the item’s listed cost. If the line names a technician, you can instead cost it from what that person actually costs the company: their wages (including the overtime their week causes), the labor burden, their benefits and their workers’ comp. This is available on Quotes, Sales/Service Orders and Invoices, and it feeds the Cost, Profit, Markup and Margin figures and each document’s Cost Analysis PDF.

Who can see and use it #

• You need to see cost on that document: Quote Cost View for quotes and Invoice Cost View for orders and invoices (see Users and Permissions).
• To see or choose the technician’s own cost you also need the Personnel Payroll view permission, because a cost together with the hours would reveal someone’s pay.
• Someone with cost view but without payroll view still sees cost, but always the item’s listed cost: on screen, in the totals and in the Cost Analysis PDF. They don’t see the Tech’s cost choice, and their saves never change a cost that was set by someone with payroll view. The technician’s hourly rate is never sent to anyone’s browser; only the resulting cost is.

Set up the person first #

1. Put the person in the Service group (Personnel, General tab). Only active people in that group appear in a line’s Tech list.
2. On the Payroll tab (Personnel): the pay type and rate (an hourly rate, or an annual salary with the standard hours per week), whether they are exempt from overtime, their default work type, any hourly pay rates by work type or pay code, and their workers’ comp rates (below).
3. Your overtime rule, and on Benefits and Labor Burden the company labor burden percentage and each person’s benefits.

Contractors are paid a standard rate with no burden or overtime, and people with no payroll setup have nothing to cost from, so lines for them keep the item’s listed cost. A salaried person is costed at their hourly equivalent (annual pay divided by 52 weeks of their standard week) with no overtime.

Workers’ comp rates #

On the Payroll tab, Workers’ comp rates holds the employer’s workers’ comp cost as a percent of the person’s wages. Leave the work type as (any work type) for the person’s default rate, and add a row for a work type that carries a different class rate. Each row has an effective date, and the rate in effect on the day of the work is the one used; older rows are kept as history. A person can have several rates (for example an office rate and a field rate). You need payroll permission to see or change them.

Choosing which cost a line uses #

You need cost view and payroll view to see these controls. Above the lines there is a Cost basis select for the whole document:

• Item’s listed cost: the cost on the item (the default).
• Tech’s actual cost (invoices), Tech’s cost (orders) or Tech’s projected cost (quotes): costed from the technician.
• Mixed appears when lines differ. Each line also has its own small select under its cost, so you can mix, for example a service line from the tech and parts from the item.

Where a line’s cost shows depends on the document. On an invoice, turn on Show cost on individual lines to see the Cost column. On a quote the Cost column is always there for anyone with cost view. On an order each line has a Cost each row under its quantity and price. Rest the pointer on a line’s cost to see both numbers, Item’s listed cost and the Tech’s cost, labelled how it was worked out (below).

The technician’s cost is worked out when you save, on the server. A line you have just added shows the item’s cost until it is saved; after saving, switch the basis and the tech’s figure is there.

Which lines can be costed from the technician #

A line is costed from the technician when it is a Service line with a tech and hours. Where the hours come from depends on the document:

Document	Hours	Result
Invoice	The line’s own start and end times if it has them; otherwise its quantity, when the unit of measure is a unit of time, starting on the line’s start date (or the invoice date).	Actual cost
Order	If the line has real start and end times, the time worked (scheduled calls count too). Otherwise its quantity from its start date (or the order date).	From the time worked, or projected
Quote	Its quantity, when the unit is a unit of time, starting on its Planned start (or the quote date). On a quote’s Service line, set the Tech and Planned start.	Projected cost

Units of time are hour (and minute), day, week and month. Days, weeks and months use the person’s standard week: a day is one fifth of it, a week is the whole week, and a month is a week times 52 divided by 12 (40 hours if none is set). Planned work is spread over working days (Monday to Friday, one standard day at a time) so a three-day job is not treated as one 24-hour day. Units like Job or Each have no length of time, so those lines keep the item’s cost.

How the cost is worked out #

1. Wages, with overtime #

The person’s rate is the hourly rate in effect that day (a rate for the work type or pay code wins over their general rate). Overtime comes from the person’s whole workweek, using their overtime rule, because an hour is overtime only when the week’s hours say so.

• Time already worked (an invoice, or an order line with real times): each day is priced from the person’s actual hours that day, and the line is priced at that day’s blended rate: the day’s total pay divided by the day’s hours. A day with overtime in it therefore costs more per hour. If there are no timesheet hours on that day to apply overtime to, straight time is used and the line’s note says so.
• Planned work (a quote, or an order line with no times): the hours are added to the person’s real hours that week and the overtime rule is applied; the cost is what the extra work adds, including any overtime it pushes the week into.
• Approved pay run: when every day of the work falls inside an Approved (or later) pay run for that person, the cost uses that run’s period-average loaded cost per worked hour instead, so it matches what you actually paid. The tooltip says from the approved pay run.

2. Burden, benefits and workers’ comp #

• Labor burden: the company percentage times the wages.
• Benefits: the person’s active employer benefits. A percent benefit is a percent of the wages; a per-hour benefit is that amount for each hour; a flat per-pay-run benefit is spread over the standard hours of one pay period (so $150 on a biweekly 80-hour period is $1.875 an hour).
• Workers’ comp: the person’s comp rate for the work type, on the day of the work, times the wages.

A worked example #

An hourly technician at $26.15, a 10% burden, a 3.25% workers’ comp rate and a $150 flat health benefit on a biweekly pay run (80 hours), on a day with no overtime:

Wages	$26.150
Labor burden, 10%	$2.615
Workers’ comp, 3.25% of wages	$0.850
Health, $150 / 80 hours	$1.875
Cost per hour	$31.49

In a week of 52 hours under a 40-hour overtime rule, the Friday line (all overtime at 1.5 times) costs $39.225 in wages instead, which comes to about $46.30 an hour with the same burden, comp and benefits, and Thursday (partly overtime) comes out between the two. Ten hours at $46.30 is $463 of cost, against $314.90 at straight time.

What is stored #

When a line is saved, TBA stores both the item’s listed cost and the technician’s cost with it, and the line’s cost is whichever the basis says. The item’s listed cost is frozen the first time the line is saved; the technician’s cost is only worked out again if the tech, quantity, unit or times change (an order line with real times is re-costed on every save, because its own hours are part of the timesheet). A line’s cost is therefore a snapshot: raising someone’s pay later does not rewrite old documents. Past documents and lines with no tech keep the item’s cost.

Because both are kept, switching a line’s basis later (if you have permission) just shows the other number. If you type a different cost into a line that uses the item’s cost, your figure is kept; a line that uses the technician’s cost is always set by the calculation.

Quote to order to invoice #

• Convert to Order carries the line’s tech, planned start date and cost figures onto the order line.
• Creating an invoice from an order carries the tech and the times. The invoice works out its own cost when you save it.

Cost Analysis PDFs #

The Quote and Invoice Cost Analysis PDFs use the same costs as the screen: the technician’s cost on lines that use it, and for someone without payroll view the item’s listed cost on every line.

Workers’ comp on pay runs (optional) #

Job costing always uses the workers’ comp rates. Whether pay runs also carry workers’ comp as an employer cost is a separate company setting on Benefits and Labor Burden: Include workers’ comp as an employer cost on pay runs (off by default). When it is on, an approved pay run’s loaded cost already includes it and job costing doesn’t add it twice.

Good to know #

• A person with no hourly rate and no rates on the Payroll tab, or a salaried person with no standard hours, is not costed (the item’s cost stays).
• The figure is an estimate until the pay period is approved. Your payroll service still works out the real taxes.
• Cost is rounded to the cent for each line, so a unit cost can show three decimals such as $34.452.