Labor billing on won quotes: fixed fee, time and materials, or already covered
A won quote sells two kinds of things: products and materials, and labor. Products and materials always become charges in your PSA. Labor never does, because a labor charge on top of billed time or a fixed price contract bills the work twice. Instead, when you convert the quote you choose how its labor bills, once for the whole project.
The three ways labor bills
| Method | What the customer pays | Time your team logs |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed fee | The quoted price, however long the work takes, billed in parts from a fixed price contract. | Recorded as not billable. |
| Time and materials | The hours your team logs, at the customer's default rates or on one of their hourly contracts. | Billable. |
| Already covered | Nothing extra: their agreement already includes this work. | Goes against that agreement, and bills only if the agreement bills for it. |
One method covers all of a project's labor. A project never mixes them.
Where you choose
- ＋In the won-quote wizard: a Labor billing step and a Contract step come after Charges. The first asks how the labor bills; the second sets up the contract, the parts or the agreement.
- ＋A workspace default: a Tenant admin sets one in Settings › Projects and time › Project billing, with the default split for a fixed fee.
- ＋The wizard picks first from the quote itself (for example, a quote that lists labor as one fixed price line starts on Fixed fee), then from the workspace default, then Time and materials. A line under the choice says why. Whoever converts the quote can change it.
Fixed fee
- ＋The contract: a new fixed price contract named from the quote (the default), or an existing fixed price contract of the customer's. Before Current makes a new one, it looks for a contract with the same name and uses that instead, so a retry never makes two.
- ＋The amount: the quote's labor total. You can change it, and a changed amount needs a written reason, which is kept with the plan.
- ＋The parts: by default 50% at project start and 50% at project complete. Change the shares, add a part on a date, or rename a part. The shares must add up to 100%. Every part but the last is rounded down to the cent and the last part takes what is left, so the parts always add up to the fee.
- ＋Every part is made in your PSA not ready to bill. Your billing owner (someone with the Finance role, or a Tenant admin) reviews each one and presses Ready to bill on the project's Labor billing card, which shows each part as Waiting, Ready to bill or Billed. Where Current can't mark it in your PSA yet, the card says so and the billing owner marks it there. Nothing bills on its own.
- ＋Project complete means the project's status reaches Complete, in Current or in your PSA. That alerts the billing owner. It never bills anything by itself.
Time and materials
Pick the customer's default rates (no contract), or one of their hourly contracts. Labor bills as your team logs time. The hours the quote sold become the project's budget, so you see when the work runs over.
Already covered
Pick the agreement that already includes the work; the wizard does not go on until you do. Time your team logs goes against that agreement and bills only if the agreement bills for it.
Post-sale tickets
The post-sale ticket path offers the same three choices after its Charges step. A fixed fee becomes a fixed price contract milestone on the ticket's contract, never a labor charge. Time and materials bills the time on the ticket. Already covered puts the ticket against the agreement you pick.
When Current can't set it up in your PSA
Some PSAs do not let Current make contracts or milestones yet: HaloPSA and Syncro today, and any step Current has not yet proven in your PSA. The wizard still offers the same three choices and records your plan. An amber note says what Current can't do, and the billing owner gets the exact steps to finish it by hand: on a project they are checklist items on the billing task, and on a post-sale ticket they are on the billing ticket.
The switch that lets Current write
Contracts and milestones are billing records, so they follow the same Off, Test and Live switch as billing tickets, in Settings › Billing owner. Off keeps the plan in Current. Test makes contracts and milestones only on a company named ZZ-Current Test. Live makes them on the customer's own company. See "Billing owner on won quotes".