Help with Labour in simPRO

Labour is a key element in your business and getting it right in your Job Management software will go a long way to having confidence in the profitability of your jobs. 

Labour Rates

Labour rates are hourly chargeout rates used for customer quotes and jobs. They also include estimated hourly labour costs, which are used to estimate labour expenses on quotes. You can create different labour rates for different levels of experience from Apprentice through to Senior Technicians and Management. 

This is also where you enter your overhead, which you can choose to include or exclude specific labour rates.

Labour Rates should be reviewed periodically as the Cost Rates will fluctuate, meaning the Sell Rate may need to be adjusted. Solvere would recommend a review every three (3) to six (6) months to ensure that employee costs are correctly being accounted for.

Service Fees

A service fee in simPRO is an additional fee you charge on a job or quote to cover things like a call-out fee with or without labour included. You can add service fees to both service quotes and jobs, as well as project quotes and jobs.

Schedule Rates

Schedule rates help to keep track of actual costs that are not easy to see in the business like the different levels of overtime, leave, and various activities.

They can be associated labour rates charged for different schedule rates populated in each employee and contractor card file.

Like all rates within simPRO, they should be closely monitored for changes and updated as required.

Activities

You can use activities to schedule and keep track of non-billable time, such as annual leave, staff training, and toolbox talks.

Once an activity is created, you can schedule it the same way you schedule quotes and jobs in simPRO.  

Technicians can be notified of activities if they have a Mobility licence assigned in their card file or you can send manual notifications.

As mentioned with other labour settings, it is important that these be reviewed to ensure they remain current every year, or as legislation changes.

Labour Fit

Labour Fit can be used to provide estimates and multipliers of time beyond what a pre-build or catalogue item may suggest in labour.

Prepaid Labour & Blocks

This is used for situations where you are selling a prepaid upfront service to a customer. Both prepaid labour types and prepaid blocks elements need to be set up to work properly.