Billing & time keeping rules engine?

[PurpleSage]

Are there any plans to implement a billing rules engine that could be configurable by client, project by client or task by project by client (or any of the multiple permutations)?  For example, say you're limited in the number of hours per day you can bill a client for a particular project.  A rule could be created for Client X that said if # of billed hours => Y, time billing ends.  If session is in progress, then session ends.  Software notifies user via some type of feedback (sound, vibration, e-mail).  Not a bad use case there. 

I can see all kinds of applications for this capability.  If people charge different rates for overtime, weekends, holidays, particular tasks, etc., a rule could be developed that stated, "For Client X, if total number of hours billed for the current week > 40, rate = project rate* 1.5".  If weekly billing surpasses 40 hours and work goes into a holiday, then billing rate automatically jumps to time-and-a-half of a holiday billing rate.  Someone could work overtime on a holiday or a weekend and the software would adjust its billing accordingly.  Of course, this feature would be supported by sessions, too.

Of course, this might be more work than anyone would think it might be worth.  I think it would be a huge differentiator for the product, though, and add some real powerful capabilities.  It might be enough of a differentiator to support a higher-priced version of TimeMaster.  I'd be interested in such a capability if it were available.

Thanks.

[Adam]

Are there any plans to implement a billing rules engine that could be configurable by client, project by client or task by project by client (or any of the multiple permutations)?  For example, say you're limited in the number of hours per day you can bill a client for a particular project.  A rule could be created for Client X that said if # of billed hours => Y, time billing ends.  If session is in progress, then session ends.  Software notifies user via some type of feedback (sound, vibration, e-mail).  Not a bad use case there. 

No we have no plans for anything like that.  I will add your request to our "wishlist", but cannot make any promises.

I can see all kinds of applications for this capability.  If people charge different rates for overtime, weekends, holidays, particular tasks, etc., a rule could be developed that stated, "For Client X, if total number of hours billed for the current week > 40, rate = project rate* 1.5".  If weekly billing surpasses 40 hours and work goes into a holiday, then billing rate automatically jumps to time-and-a-half of a holiday billing rate.  Someone could work overtime on a holiday or a weekend and the software would adjust its billing accordingly.  Of course, this feature would be supported by sessions, too.

Of course, this might be more work than anyone would think it might be worth.  I think it would be a huge differentiator for the product, though, and add some real powerful capabilities.  It might be enough of a differentiator to support a higher-priced version of TimeMaster.  I'd be interested in such a capability if it were available.

Thanks.

We do have plans for adding an "overtime" and "doubletime" routine.  This will only affect the main Time Entry.  You cannot apply these to individual sessions.  These would only work on a single time entry, so if you setup a rule that if you worked over 8 hours it would start billing at 1.5x the rate after 8 hours.  These rules would be user definable.  I don't think that we would do a "over 40 hour week" thing as that is not as simple as working with a single Time Entry, but we'll keep it in mind.