A rate card holds your loaded labor rates: what an hour of a technician's time costs you and what you bill for it. Every labor cost entry looks up exactly one rate card line by resource, work date, and shift band, so rate cards are the first thing to set up.
Create the card
- Go to Setup → Rate Cards and select New.
- Enter a Name (for example "FY26 Field Labor"), an Effective From date, and optionally an Effective To date. Leave Effective To blank for an open-ended card. Both dates are inclusive.
- Set Active to Yes and save.
Add rate card lines
Add one Rate Card Line per resource and shift band:
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Resource | The bookable resource this rate applies to. |
| Shift Band | Standard, Overtime, Night, Weekend, or Holiday. |
| Cost Rate | Your loaded hourly cost for that resource in that band. |
| Bill Rate | The hourly rate you charge. |
| Burden % | An uplift added on top of the cost rate, for example benefits or shop loading. It does not affect revenue. |
For 8 hours at a cost rate of 40, a bill rate of 95, and 20% burden, the entry's extended cost is 8 × 40 × 1.20 = 384.00 and its revenue is 8 × 95 = 760.00.
Rules to know
- Rates are effective-dated. When your costs change, create a new rate card for the new period instead of editing history. Jobs already costed keep the rate that applied on their work date.
- Exactly one match per resource, band, and date. If two active cards overlap for the same resource and shift band on the same date, or one card has duplicate lines, labor cost entries for that resource cannot be saved until the overlap is fixed.
- There is no fallback rate. A resource with no line for the requested shift band on the work date cannot be costed, and the cost entry is rejected. Add a line for every band you actually use.
- Currency. Enter rates in the currency your work orders use. A job's margin is computed in the work order's currency.
- Rates are resolved per resource. Job Margin 365 looks up rates by bookable resource, not by role or skill.
Who can edit rate cards
Creating and editing rate cards and lines requires the Job Margin 365 - Setup role. Other roles can view them. See Roles and permissions.