Prices (rates)

Be aware: Prices (also called rates, both are used as synonyms in this article) are always calculated from the duration of a record. The duration is often a rounded value and not the real difference between end and begin.

There are two price types:

• Hourly price: will be used to calculate the records price by multiplying it with the duration (see below)
• Fixed price: the value will be used to set the price for every record, no matter how long the duration is

If any of the above is set to 0, the records price will be set to 0. A fixed price always wins over an hourly price.

And there are two different rates for each time-record:

• The regular hourly price defines the external costs for yor customer (what actually goes on an invoice)
• And the internal price defines your costs for the accounted work (what your employees costs you)

The rate for each timesheet is not calculated on the fly, but stored with the timesheet itself.

Defining prices

Prices can be defined in 4 different places;

• on the user level (in the user preferences)
• on the customer level
• on a project level
• and on the activity level

The values on the user level should always be filled, as they are the last place where Kimai always looks for a rate, if no other could be found.

The other rate settings (customer, project, activity) allow to define multiple rates. Each customer/project/activity can have one rate setting, that acts as global fallback (if the username is not chosen) for every user, who has no dedicated rate for this object. For example: a customer gets a global rate of 10€, and you additionally create one rate for user A for 20€. Now that means A will have the rate of 20€, but user B and C and D will have a rate to 10€.

Internal price

If you leave the internal price empty on customer/project/activity level, the internal price user-preference will be used as fallback.

Changing prices

Rate changes apply to future records only. If you change e.g. a user’s hourly rate, it will be used for all timesheet records that will be created from now on.

Existing records will never be changed retrospectively by changing a base rate (e.g. the user’s hourly rate). This would immediately destroy your entire accounting history.

Batch changing prices

If you want to change the rate for many timesheets at once, you can go to “All times” and use the search filter to find the correct timesheets.

Now tick the box in the top left hand corner of the results list to select all records. Click on the “Edit” button below the table. You will be taken to the “Batch Update” page where you activate the “Recalculate prices” toggle and click “Save”.

Read more about the Batch Update Mode in the timesheet documentation.

Price changes upon item changes

If a record already has an hourly or fixed rate set, it will be re-calculated if you change one of these fields:

• Customer
• Project
• Activity
• User

As all these fields can result in a different rate setting, the rate is recalculated for each timesheet that is changed.

In other words:

If Project A has a rate of 100 and Project B a rate of 120, and you move a time-record from A to B it will automatically be changed from 100 to 120.

Price calculation

The algorithm to calculate a timesheet records price works by summing up scores, where the highest score wins:

• Activity price: 5 points
• Project price: 3 points
• Customer price: 1 points
• User specific price: +1 point

This leads to the following decision matrix:

If no price can be found, the users hourly-price preference will be used to calculate the records rate. In case that the users hourly-price is not set or equals 0, the records rate will be set to 0.

The timesheet price calculation is based on the following formula:

• Fixed price: $fixedRate
• Hourly price: $hourlyRate * ($durationInSeconds / 3600) * $factor

You find more information how and where you can edit the different rates types in the following chapters.