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Price list & pricing

Work out what your hour must earn (Rate Calculator)

Under Price List beside the Cost Calculator: turn your running costs, your own pay and the hours you can really bill into the rate an hour has to earn — with no markup, because profit is decided once, in the Cost Calculator.

What it is for

An hourly rate is only a guess until it is measured against what an hour has to cover. The Rate Calculator asks three things — what the business costs to run, what you must take home, and how many hours you can actually invoice — and gives back the rate at which an hour breaks even and the rate at which it covers your pay as well.

It lives under Price List, beside the Cost Calculator (it used to sit under Financials). It deliberately produces no charge rate and no markup: profit is added once, by the markup on a costing, so it is never charged twice.

Save a rate

  1. Open Price List and tap Rate Calculator, then + New. At the top, in What is this rate for, give the rate a name — for example Standard hour.
  2. 1 · What the hour must cover: your running costs a month, what you must take home a month, and the share to set aside for tax as a percentage.
  3. 2 · Hours you can actually bill: hours a week (starts at 45), leave days a year, and the percentage of your time that is not billable — quoting, driving, admin.
  4. 3 · What the hour costs: Worklog shows Break-even (costs only) and Your hour costs (costs plus your pay, grossed up for the tax you set aside). Tap Save this rate — it stays grey until the rate has a name and a figure.
💡Every saved rate is worked out again from its inputs each time the list opens, so if your costs change, edit the rate and the figure follows. Each row shows its number (like RTE-0002), Break-even and the hours it assumes a month; search finds a rate by name or number, and Sort ▾ orders them by name, by cost per hour or by number. Under the list, 📄 PDF and 📊 CSV / Excel print your rates as you have them. A saved rate has its own pair too, under its figures when you open it — its Rate Breakdown: what went in and what it works out.

Use it in a costing

On a costing’s labour line, a “Use a saved rate…” box appears above Hours and Rate whenever you have saved one. Picking it fills the Rate with what that hour COSTS you — not a charge-out rate — so the costing’s own markup adds your profit exactly once.

Related guides
Work out a price with the Cost Calculator →Price List Reports →Track actual hours vs your estimate →
Still stuck? Open the in-app help assistant, or email us at hello@worklogsolutions.co.za.
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