> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.getatelier.design/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# How hours are priced

> The rate card: what each role bills at, how a project can override it, and why time sometimes logs without a price.

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.

## 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.

## 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](/settings/team-and-roles) covers the distinction.

<Warning>
  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.
</Warning>

## 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.

### 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.

### 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.

## The order, in one place

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

<Steps>
  <Step title="The project's flat rate">
    If the project has one, that is the price. Nothing below is consulted.
  </Step>

  <Step title="The project's rate for that person's role">
    The negotiated rate card, if this role has a line on it.
  </Step>

  <Step title="The studio's rate for that role">
    The default from Settings → Studio → Roles & rates.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Nothing">
    The hour is logged and counted, but not priced.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## When time shows no money

Hours with no money against them are normal in three cases, and they are worth
telling apart:

| What you see                                    | Why                                                                                   |
| ----------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| A person's hours unpriced, everyone else's fine | They have no job role in **Settings → Team**.                                         |
| Everyone on one role unpriced                   | That role's rate is blank, in Settings and on the project.                            |
| Hours logged but not billable                   | Only billable time is priced. Non-billable time is meant to have no money against it. |

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.

<Tip>
  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.
</Tip>