Extended Rates in TimeControl Industrial and TimeControl Industrial Online are designed for many different business challenges including hazard premiums, extra pay for different shifts, variance between regular, overtime and double-time and so much more.

TimeControl’s rate structure is so extensive that we can’t cover it all here.  In fact, there are several resources worth looking for on the website including the white paper “Creating your Rate structure” on the White Paper page at: TimeControl.com/resources/whitepapers.

For today’s conversation, let’s look at just one powerful aspect of the TimeControl Rate architecture, the Extended Rates functionality of TimeControl Industrial and TimeControl Industrial Online.

Extended Rates works a bit differently than a normal rate table.  In the case of Extended Rates, TimeControl will try to match fields that have been filled out on the Crew Timesheet or regular timesheet with fields that are in the Extended Rates table.  Imagine for a moment that you have different rates for different projects and different rates within each project for different roles.  Then imagine that there are premiums for working on the day shift vs. the night shift and additional premiums based on location and the weather conditions for outdoor work.

Whew!  That’s a lot to take into account.  Let’s add some complexity to the challenge in saying that some of these premiums affect what we charge the client.  Some don’t. Some of these premiums affect what we pay the employee.  Some don’t.

TimeControl Extended Rates is ready to handle all those challenges.

Once you’ve designed your extended rates structure, setting it up is quite straightforward.  On the System Preferences page, in the TCi Settings tab, you map the timesheet field name to the Extended Labor Rates field name so that TimeControl knows how to find the right record.

Then in the Extended Rates table, you set up what might be a very long list of field combinations and their associated value.  These tables are often set up externally using something like Excel and then imported into TimeControl.

In the timesheet, user-defined fields are created to allow the entries for the values in question.  The values can be validated against acceptable values or be tied to a drop-down list to avoid typos.

Here’s an example based on the fields we set above.

Project	Rate	Role	Shift	Location	Conditions	Internal Cost	External Price	Average Project
Polar	Regular	Engineer	Day	NYC	Dry	$40.00	$65.00	$50.00
Polar	Overtime	Engineer	Day	NYC	Dry	$60.00	$80.00	$75.00
Polar	Double	Engineer	Day	NYC	Dry	$80.00	$80.00	$75.00
Polar	Regular	Engineer	Night	NYC	Dry	$50.00	$75.00	$60.00
Polar	Overtime	Engineer	Day	NYC	Dry	$75.00	$90.00	$75.00
Polar	Double	Engineer	Day	NYC	Dry	$100.00	$100.00	$75.00
Polar	Regular	Engineer	Day	NYC	Storms	$50.00	$65.00	$50.00
Polar	Overtime	Engineer	Day	NYC	Storms	$70.00	$80.00	$75.00
Polar	Double	Engineer	Day	NYC	Dry	$100.00	$100.00	$75.00
Polar	Regular	Engineer	Night	MIA	Storms	$60.00	$75.00	$60.00
Polar	Overtime	Engineer	Day	MIA	Storms	$85.00	$90.00	$75.00

As you can see, there are premiums set up for all these different options and for each line there are 3 values for Internal Cost, External Price and Average Project cost.  You can have up to 9 different values for each line.  That’s a lot.  Think of it as a 9-dimensional matrix of values per timesheet line.

We’re only showing a portion of what would be a very long list of possible answers.

As of TimeControl 8.2, you’ll be able to simplify the design of this table with the use of null-values.  This allows you to leave a cell blank and TimeControl will assume that any value for that cell is then a match.  For example, let’s say the list above is the same for all projects, not just the Polar project.  In that case, leave the Project field blank and TimeControl will match the rest of the conditions without worry over the project being selected.  This should make creating Extended Rates table a good deal easier in the future.

Matching up the extended rates to the timesheets doesn’t require any effort.  On the timesheet, the employee or for a Crew, the supervisor, enters in the values for the entire crew or each person based on what’s the situation is.  TimeControl takes care of the rest.

There is a similar structure for Materials as these too can have different values either for cost or for billing for different circumstances.

To find out more about rates, consulting the TimeControl Reference Guide or see the white paper “Creating your Rate structure” on the White Paper page at: TimeControl.com/resources/whitepapers.