Cost rates vs billable rates

Handl tracks two separate rates for each team member — what they cost you, and what you charge your clients for their time — so you can see your real margin on every project.

Steps

Go to Settings → Workspace → Team & rates and open a team member.
Set their Cost Rate (what they cost your agency) and Billable Rate (what you charge clients for their time), each with an hourly, daily, monthly, or yearly period.
Need a different rate on a specific project? Set a project-specific override for that member on that project.
Update a rate whenever it changes — the new rate applies from that point forward.

Good to know

Rates can even be set in different currencies for cost and billable — useful if you pay an overseas contractor in one currency but bill your client in another.
Past time entries keep the rate that applied when they were logged, so changing a rate today doesn't rewrite already-invoiced history.
By default, only your account owner can see cost rates. Turn on "can view cost rates" for a teammate if you want them to see margins too.
A project-specific rate overrides your agency default, which in turn overrides the team member's base rate.

Cost rates and contractor pay

If you pay contractors through Handl's pay runs, their cost rate is what drives their pay. Each statement is their approved time entries multiplied by the cost rate in force on the date of each entry (a project-specific rate first, then your agency default, then the member's base rate), or their retainer if they have one. An entry with no cost rate counts as zero on the statement, so set rates before a run opens. Expenses and adjustments on a statement are added to project costs when the run is approved. See Pay your team: how pay runs work.

FAQs

Will changing a rate affect invoices I've already sent? No — already-logged time keeps the rate that applied at the time it was synced.

Who can see cost rates by default? Only the account owner, unless you've explicitly given another teammate permission to view them.

Can I bill a client in a different currency to what I pay a contractor? Yes — cost and billable rates can be set in different currencies.