GeoOp: Managing Charges in GeoOp

A guide to managing your charges.

Creating Charges

Charges represent either a time asset (Workers hourly charge) or a fee that you are passing onto a client, this could be a call out fee or quoted price. They can be assigned to 1 or many Staff members, and will then show as Charge Rates options on their mobile devices.

To add Charge Rates, go to Settings > Charges. Click Add Charge to add a new Charge record, then completed the appropriate fields as follows:

• Charge Name: Add a short version of the Charge Name here, or a code if more suitable. An example could be 'Plumber: After-Hours 1', or you could use an original code like 'PLM:AH1'. The Charge Name should be kept as clear and short as is sensible, as it will facilitate quicker identification on the mobile platforms.

• Charge Description: This field, located directly below the name field, can contain a longer version of the Charge name, or include extra details as required. It will also show when being selected on a mobile device, primarily as support text to clarify the Charge purpose. But as a default this text will also show on quotes so should be fully considered when writing. Following the above example, this text could be 'Plumber: Standard after-hours evenings (6-11pm) and weekends rate. Callout charge not included'.

• Tax Rate: Also called COA (Chart of Accounts) or Charge Code, this field is non-editable directly. But it will look up a drop-down list of Charge Codes you have set up in the Tax Rates section of your Company Accounts settings. See (http://support.geoop.com/settings/settings-faq/managing-tax-rates) for further details.

• Charge Rate: The value of the Charge, as either a 'static' (single), or a 'flexible' (per hour/day) charge. See below for more details on static and flexible charges.

• Cost: This is where you add the respective cost related to your Charge. The cost added here forms an integral part of GeoOp's Job profitability reporting, if you wish to use it, so this field should be consistently added to all Charge records. If you do not wish to view profitability, this can be left blank.

• Associate Charge To: Here you can assign the Charge to be available for selection to any Workgroups or individual Staff members as required. Additionally you can associate a Charge to a particular Client or group of Clients. This scenario could be useful when you have a particular Client that has special discount rates for all work done.

Static vs flexible Charges

The Charges that you create can be intended for use either as static or flexible. Static means a set fee that would generally be added to a Job by your Staff with a quantity of 1. Examples of these would be things like 'Admin Fee' or 'Call Out Fee', and these may even be pre-loaded to Jobs to save Staff time.

Primarily though, Charges would be intended as for use as per hour rate. This type of rate is a 'flexible' rate and would be added to Jobs with relevant multiple quantity. In theory, a flexible rate could be used to capture multiples of anything (days, weeks, visits, minutes?). However if you do add flexible Charges in this way, it is recommended that you describe the Charge accurately in the Name or Description fields for your Staff to refer to (eg Standard Hourly Rate, or Weekend Daily Rate).

The possibilities are clearly endless for the Charge Rates you want to create, and you should be able to easily create a Charge Rate structure that suits your business needs. Some forethought is recommended before adding Charge Rates, to ensure best results.