Locking In Rates

Since billing rates are applied automatically to unbilled time, your historical unbilled time may be updated as you change your firm's rates from month-to-month. For most firms, that's valid behavior. All of the hours billed on a given invoice should use the "current" rate card.

For some firms, however, unbilled time may sit in queue for months before being included on an invoice. Rather than update the billing rate on that work when the invoice is created, firms would like the option to "freeze" billing rates, so future rate increases aren't applied to time entered on or before a specified date.

To accommodate that requirement, BigTime has added a "Billing Rate Closing Date" to the General Settings screen. You'll find that field at the top of the general settings page (labeled "Rate Lock (Date)").

To lock in your billing rates as of a given date, just put a date into that field. If you don't plan on using this feature, then you can ignore that field and just leave it blank.

Once again, keep in mind that this feature applies ONLY to unbilled time. Billing rates for time that is attached to an invoice are ALWAYS locked down (a user would need to click the "update rates" link on the invoice itself in order to over-ride that lock).

Unlocking Individual Time Entries

Even if you are freezing rates as of a given date, you still have the option to unlock one or more specific time entries, so the "current" rate can be applied to it. To do so, just pop open the "edit" window for the entry you'd like to unlock and turn OFF the "Rate Locked" check box.

The next time rates are applied to your unbilled hours, this entry will be updated as well. Note that time entries are then RE-LOCKED to prevent additional updates.

You should also keep in mind that locking down rates does not prevent you from updating the billing rate on the time entry page. It just tells BigTime that the rate shouldn't be updated automatically when draft invoices are created or when certain reports/screens are run.

Rate-Locking, Step-by-Step

If you would like to lock down your current billing rates, the process is simple.

1. Make sure that your rate structure is correct. Locking down rates is like creating a snapshot of your billing rates, so you want to make sure that the version you'd like "locked down" is entered into the system before you move on.
2. Verify that the time you'd like to lock down has been submitted. Un-submitted time won't be effected by this lock-down, so you'll need to wait until your users have submitted their time for the period you are attempting to lock before you proceed.
3. Goto the Tools... System Settings... General Settings page, and update the Rate Lock date. This is the date on or before which rates should be locked (e.g. - to lock down your billing rates for the end of December, you would enter 12/31/08 into the Rate Lock field).
4. Click SAVE to complete the process. BigTime will apply your current rates to all of your unbilled time and then LOCK those records up. Future updates to your rate structure won't be applied to those locked down records.

   NOTE once again that this only applies to unbilled time entries. Billed time entries are already locked down.