---
title: "Billing rates and team costs — Clock Clerk user guide"
description: "The Billing rates and Team costs screens in Clock Clerk: rate cards, billing roles, a project's and a person's rates, and what each person costs, with who sees each button."
url: "https://clockclerk.com/guide/screens/finance"
---

Screens

# Billing rates and team costs

Two screens hold what an hour is worth. **Billing rates** holds what each billing role bills a client at. **Team costs** holds what each person costs you. The rates price invoices, approvals and reports. The costs price reports on a cost basis. How a rate is chosen is explained in [Bill a client](https://clockclerk.com/guide/workflows/bill-a-client.md).

## Who sees them

Finance users and administrators, and nobody else: a Manager or a User has neither screen, and the app refuses both to them. They are in the menu under **Receivables**: **Billing rates** ([app.clockclerk.com/finance/rates](https://app.clockclerk.com/finance/rates)) on every plan, and **Team costs** ([app.clockclerk.com/finance/costs](https://app.clockclerk.com/finance/costs)) on the Team and Enterprise plans and during the trial.

While your organization is read-only, **New billing role**, **Add rate change** and **Add cost change** at the top are disabled, and so is everything in each role's **…** menu, though the menu itself still opens (see [Roles](https://clockclerk.com/guide/roles.md)). Any change is refused.

## Billing rates

![Billing rates, for a Finance user, showing the Global standard rates card: The standard price list. Any client without an imported rate for a role bills at these rates. Tiles show 5 of 5 roles priced, 0 scheduled and an average of $172. System Engineer I is $110 per hour, System Engineer II $145 and DevOps Engineer $158, each in effect since January 1, 2026, with a period from 1/1/26, open, tagged Current, Standard price list 2026, Manual, with Edit and Delete, and Add rate change. Import rate card, New billing role and Add rate change are at the top.](https://clockclerk.com/guide/img/finance-rates.webp)

The standard price list, one card per billing role.

- **Rate card** picks which list you see: **Global standard rates**, the price list for every client, or one client's contract, whose rates override the standard list for the dates they cover. A client's card says **Not priced — bills at global standard** for a role it does not price.
- **The tiles**: **Roles priced**, **Scheduled** (rates that start later) and **Avg current**.
- **A card per billing role**: its rate today, **per hour**, and its periods: **From**, **To** (*open* if it has no end), **Rate**, the change from the period before, and **Source**, tagged **Current**, **Scheduled** or **Expired**, with the contract reference and whether it was **Manual** or **Imported**.

**Add rate change** opens the rate dialog: **Applies to**, **Billing role**, **Rate (USD / hour)**, **Source**, **Effective from**, **Effective to (blank = open-ended)** and **Contract reference**. With **End the rate currently in effect the day before this one starts** ticked, the old rate stops where the new one begins. It is ticked for a new rate and unticked when editing one. Editing a period can change which billing role it names. It cannot move the period to another rate card (the standard list, a client's contract, a project or a person), nor switch it between a role's rate and a custom rate; for those, add one there and delete this one.

**Import rate card** takes a pasted list, one *role, hourly rate* per line (such as *DevOps, 148*), into the standard list or a client's contract from one date. The preview marks each line **new** or what it replaces, and skips lines whose role does not exist or is archived, and lines with no rate. **Delete** on a period asks **Delete this rate period?**; the hours it priced are priced again by whatever still covers them.

A client's contract rates are also shown on the client's page, under [Clients](https://clockclerk.com/guide/screens/clients.md).

## Billing roles

**New billing role** adds a role with its **Role name**, a **Standard rate (USD / hour)**, an **Effective from** date and a **Contract reference**, so it is priced from the start. A role names a job, such as *Data Engineer*, and each name is used once. A new organization starts with none: the getting-started checklist asks for the first.

The **…** menu on a role has **Rename**, **Archive** (or **Restore**) and **Delete**. A role nothing uses yet can be deleted with its standard price. A role already booked, assigned or priced is offered **Archive role** instead: it leaves every picker, keeps pricing what was booked as it, and moves under **Archived roles**, where it can be restored.

## A project's and a person's rates

On a project's page, under [Projects](https://clockclerk.com/guide/screens/projects.md), Finance users and administrators also have the following. A Finance user can open every project for them, granted or not; without a grant the rest of the page is read-only.

- **Billing rates**: what each role bills at on this project, for everyone on it. It overrides the client's contract and the standard list.
- **Rates** beside a person on the Team card: what that person's hours bill at on this project, per role, overriding the project's rates. **Add custom rate** sets one rate for every role they book there.

Each row says which card the rate in effect comes from: **Custom rate**, **Agreed for this person**, **Project rate**, **Client contract**, **Global standard**, **Not priced** or, for a custom rate nobody has set, **No custom rate**. **Delete** there removes the period at once, without asking.

## Team costs

![Team costs, for a Finance user. A search box, the Show filter with Everyone, Costed and Not costed, and a note that a cost is what an hour of somebody's time costs to deliver and does not change with the client. Tiles show 10 of 10 people costed, 0 scheduled and an average of $94 hourly. Alex Moreau, Practice Lead, is $140 per hour, Dana Whitfield, DevOps, $88 and Demo User $95, each in effect since January 1, 2026, with a period tagged Current, 2026 comp review, Edit and Delete, and Add cost change.](https://clockclerk.com/guide/img/finance-costs.webp)

Team costs, one card per person.

What an hour of somebody's time costs you to deliver. It is the same whichever client the hour is booked to, and like a rate, each period runs from its **Effective from** date until the next one starts.

- **Search name or job title…** and **Show**: **Everyone**, **Costed** or **Not costed**. **Costed** means a cost is in effect today, so a person whose cost has lapsed is **Not costed**.
- **The tiles**: **People costed**, **Scheduled** and **Avg hourly**.
- **A card per person**: their cost today, **per hour**, **per month** or **per year**, or, without one, **No cost recorded for this person yet** if they have never had a cost and **No cost in effect today** once theirs has lapsed, and its periods.

**Add cost change** asks for the **Person**, the **Basis** (**Hourly**, **Monthly** or **Annual**), the cost, the dates and a **Note**. A monthly or annual cost is turned into an hourly one month by month: the month's share is divided by the hours the person recorded in that month, so a month's costs add up to the salary. An hourly cost can be up to 100,000; for a salary, choose **Monthly** or **Annual**.

[Reports](https://clockclerk.com/guide/screens/reports.md) never show costs to Managers or Users, and only Finance and administrators have this screen. The one exception is a contractor, whose cost here is their pay rate: they see it in the **Rate** column of their own protocol on My Month, and so does the manager who reviews that protocol. How a contractor's cost pays them is in [Pay contractors](https://clockclerk.com/guide/workflows/pay-contractors.md).

## Buttons

| Button | What it does | When it appears |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Import rate card | Imports a pasted list of rates into the standard list or a client's contract. | On Billing rates. |
| New billing role | Adds a billing role with its standard rate. | On Billing rates. Disabled while read-only. |
| Add rate change | Adds a rate period. | At the top of Billing rates, disabled while read-only; on each role's card, except an archived role's. |
| Rename, Archive, Restore, Delete | Manage a billing role. | In the role's … menu. Delete is offered on an archived role only when nothing uses it. Disabled while read-only; the menu itself still opens. |
| Edit, Delete | Change or remove a rate or cost period. | On each period. |
| Rates, Add custom rate | Show and set a person's rates on a project. | On a project's Team card. |
| Add cost change | Adds a cost period. | At the top of Team costs, disabled while read-only; on each person's card. |