The hourly rates for each work type are initialized from the default hourly rates when the project is created. From then on, the hourly rate is applied to any time entries tracked on the project or its tasks. If an hourly rate is updated mid project, all of the time entries for that work type will be updated to reflect the change. Therefore, the hourly rate for each project needs to be constant for the duration of the project.
But, what happens if the hourly rate needs to be updated in the middle of a project? There are two different ways to handle this scenario. Both of these methods will preserve the hourly rates going back in time, while also applying the new hourly rate going forward.
Create a new project
The most straightforward approach is to create a new project. This will reset all of the work types and hourly rates for that project. You can then update the work types with the hourly rate to be used going forward.
If you updating several of your hourly rates at once, or if there is a clear stopping point in the project, this is the method to use. This method will also ensure that the hourly rates from other projects will be tied to the same underlying work type, which will make reports more streamlined and easier to run.
Create a new work type
If just one hourly rate needs to change, it may be more advantageous to deactivate the old work type and replace it with a new one. To do this, create a new default work type with a similar name, so that you know it’s an extension of the previous one. Then add the newly created work type to the project. Deactivate the old work type so that it can no longer be used when adding time.
This method will preserve all of the historical time entries that used the previous work type. However, it does create a second work type that is separate from the first one. When running a report by project, both work types will appear showing the different hourly rates that were used during the project.