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A studio does not bill every hour at the same price. The principal’s afternoon and the design assistant’s afternoon are not worth the same to the client, and a client who negotiated a rate card expects those numbers and not your standard ones. Atelier prices an hour from who logged it, with two places a project can overrule that. Getting the rate card right once is what makes every time report and every hourly invoice correct afterwards.

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The studio’s rate card

Settings → Studio → Roles & rates holds the roles your studio bills as, each with a default hourly rate. A new studio starts with thirteen, from Principal down through Design Director, Lead Designer, Senior Designer, Interior Designer, Junior Designer, Design Assistant, Project Manager, Procurement Manager, Drafter (CAD), Studio Manager, Bookkeeper and Marketing. They are a starting point, not a fixed list — rename them, remove the ones you do not use, add your own. Rates arrive unset, because there is no sensible default for what your studio charges. Until you fill them in, nothing is priced. Changes here save as you make them; there is no Save button on this section.

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Who bills as what

A person’s rate comes from their job role, set against them in Settings → Team. This is not the same thing as their access level. Owner, Admin and Member decide what someone can see and change; the job role decides what their hour costs. Someone can be an Admin and a Junior Designer, or a Member and the Principal. Team and roles covers the distinction.
On a project without a flat rate, a member with no job role is not billed at all. Their time is logged and counted in hours, but it carries no money, because there is no role to look a rate up by — and no per-role rate can rescue it, on the project or in Settings. If a person’s hours keep coming back unpriced, this is the first thing to check.A project flat rate does cover them, since it is read before anyone’s role is.

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Overriding it on a project

Two overrides live on the project, both in the project’s own settings rather than on the overview screen. Open the project and edit it to reach them.

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Per-role rates for this project

A negotiated rate card, one line per role. Type a number against Lead Designer and lead designers bill at that rate on this project alone, everywhere else unchanged. The box shows the studio’s own rate as its placeholder, so you can see what you are departing from. Leave it blank and the studio rate applies. This appears once the project exists. It is not on the create form — there is no project to hang a rate on until the project has been made.

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A project flat rate

Project flat rate bills every hour on the project at one price, whoever logged it. It is the blended-rate arrangement: one number in the contract, regardless of who does the work. Left empty, each person bills at their role’s rate. Filled in, it wins over everything else — including any per-role rates you set on the same project, so setting both is not a way to price some roles differently.

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The order, in one place

For every hour logged, Atelier takes the first of these that has a number:
1

The project's flat rate

If the project has one, that is the price. Nothing below is consulted.
2

The project's rate for that person's role

The negotiated rate card, if this role has a line on it.
3

The studio's rate for that role

The default from Settings → Studio → Roles & rates.
4

Nothing

The hour is logged and counted, but not priced.

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When time shows no money

Hours with no money against them are normal in three cases, and they are worth telling apart: In a shared report the rate column reads — where there is no rate, and Mixed where the rows behind a figure were billed at more than one.
Fill the rate card in before anyone starts logging time. Rates are read when a report is drawn rather than stamped onto each entry, so a rate added later prices the hours already logged — but a month of unpriced time is a month you cannot bill from confidently.The exception is a locked shared report, which keeps the figures it was locked with. Correcting a rate afterwards does not change what the client has already been shown.