Introduction
- Rapport 3 uses grade rather than individual rates for forecasting in the Fee/Budget Plan – Labour Plan.
There are a number of reasons for this;
- You may not know the individual you will be using when planning for a project.
- It allows staff to plan projects without knowing the exact rate of other members of staff.
- For time and expense project it allows grades to be allocated a charge out rate too.
- Each time a new project is created a copy of these rates are made and associated with the project. This ensures each project starts off with a common set of grade rates but allows for changes to be made, on a project-by-project basis, if required.
- If specific rates on a project have been negotiated or the default rates are not applicable to the project you can override them (from which a revised margin percentage is calculated), or vice versa.
- These rates are unique for each Grade. These are used for forecasting and quite often calculated using an average rate of staff members. Once the time has passed, these forecast figures will be overwritten by the actual staff cost rates.
Maintaining Project Grade Rates
- Maintaining Grade rates within a project, click on the
icon to open the Project Grade Rates Console. This will allow you to edit/view cost rates and charge out rates. This icon can be accessed on the Workstage’s or Labour Plan tabs:
| Column Name | Description |
| Live Cost | The average cost rate of all staff members of the selected grade. This can be compared against the default cost rates for reasonableness. Essentially these should be very similar and can be used as guidance to set your default cost rates. This rate is based on the employee’s base cost rate multiplied by the overhead factor in the Human Resource – project rates tab. |
| Default Cost | The grade cost rate used for forecasting on all projects by default. This figure is from the default ‘Plan Cost’ in the control panel. |
| Plan Cost | The grade cost rate used for forecasting on this project. These hourly rates should include overhead costs too. These will automatically default to the default cost rate but can be edited on a project-by-project basis (with sufficient security rights). Labour plan – Total Cost (£) Column. |
| Default Charge | The current charge rate used for forecasting on all projects by default. This figure is from the default ‘Plan Charge’ in the control panel. |
| Plan Charge | The grade charge rate used for forecasting on this project. These will automatically default to the default charge rate but can be edited on a project-by-project basis (with sufficient security rights). These are used for time and expense projects and can change if agreed with the client. Labour Plan - Total Charge (£) Column. |
| Margin | The Profit margin is the difference between the cost and charge rates. If you edit this profit margin %, it will automatically update the plan charge rate accordingly. |
Project Target Margin
- Some organisations also include a margin within the cost rate, which is classed as a contingency amount or profit margin. Rapport3 allows for this but defines any cost rate that includes a margin as a charge rate.
- A charge rate includes a profit margin and is applied to a project at grade level. The Charge rate would be used for project that are invoiced on a time charge basis.
Example:
