Billing types and rates
Choose how a project bills — hourly, fixed fee, or non-billable — and understand how rates are inherited from the client.
Every project has a Rate type that decides how its time becomes money. You pick it from a segmented control on the project form.
- Role
- OwnerAdminManager
Setting rates is a manage-tier action. Members never see rates or amounts.
Where to find it
On the project form (Projects → New project, or a project's Edit page), use the Rate type control.
The three rate types
Hourly
Set an Hourly rate. Time tracked on the project is priced at this rate. Leave the rate blank to inherit the client's default hourly rate.
Fixed fee
Set a flat Fixed fee amount for the whole project. The fee is a contract balance: invoice it in full or in partial installments. Tracked hours measure delivery effort and are never turned into invoice lines, so there is no hourly-rate field.
Non-billable
Time on this project won't be billable and won't appear on invoices. There is no hourly-rate field. Use this for internal or pro-bono work you still want to track.
Rate inheritance
When an Hourly project's rate is left blank, it inherits the client's default hourly rate (set in the client's billing defaults). Set the client default once and new hourly projects pick it up automatically. Fixed-fee and non-billable projects do not inherit or use that rate.
On a Fixed fee project, task estimates and tracked hours still show delivery effort. They never determine its invoice value. See Invoice fixed-fee projects.
Fixed-fee history and reconciliation
New fixed-fee projects begin with Previously invoiced = 0. Existing or imported fixed-fee projects ask a Manager+ to confirm how much of the contract was already invoiced before Hoursmith exposes the remaining balance in the invoice builder. Entering 0 is valid. This prevents older manual invoices from being counted twice.
The project page then separates:
- the full Fixed fee,
- historical plus Sent/Paid Invoiced value,
- value Reserved in Draft invoices,
- Remaining value available for the next invoice, and
- any Over-allocation if the contract was later reduced below posted history.
What happens next
- Hourly projects contribute billable, un-invoiced time to the invoice builder.
- Fixed fee projects contribute their reconciled remaining contract value, independently of tracked time.
- Non-billable time is tracked for your records but never reaches an invoice.