Setting up Rate Cards

For general information about rate cards, see Rate Cards Overview.

General Configuration

If you are an administrator, you can determine the behavior of rate cards in the following ways.

The Rate_Card_May_Not_Have_Multiple_Targets validation rule on the Rate Card object prevents a rate card from being related to more than one of account, region, practice, or group. Deactivate this validation rule to enable a rate card to be related to more than one of these objects.

Note:

If this validation rule is disabled, only the field that matches highest in the precedence order is taken into account when matching rate cards to resources. You can use the Rate Card Matcher plugin to enable rate cards to be matched based on more than one object. For more information, see Choosing Between Multiple Matches.

The RateCardValidator configuration option in the ASM Triggers configuration group prevents the creation of duplicate rate cards. Rate cards are considered to be duplicated if they have the same values for the following fields: Resource Role, Account, Region, Practice, Group, Start Date, and End Date. This does not prevent rate cards that have overlapping dates, only ones that have the same start and end date. Disable this configuration option to enable duplicate rate cards. For more information, see Trigger Settings.

The precedence-for-rate-cards configuration option in the Resource Requests configuration group enables you top specify the precedence of the Account, Region, Practice, and Group fields when matching rate cards. The default precedence is:

  1. Account
  2. Region
  3. Practice
  4. Group
Note:

When changing the value of the precedence-for-rate-cards configuration option, if you are specifying a custom field, you must remove the pse__ namespace prefix. This is only relevant for packaged PSA fields.

For more information about how precedence affects rate card matching, see Account, Region, Practice, and Group.

Rate Card Matching

The rate cards that are matched to resource requests depend on various factors. The following are criteria for matching rate cards, and their precedence varies.

Rate cards are always matched using the resource role of the resource request, except for when no matching rate card can be found for the specified role. In this case, the default rate card is used. For more information, see Creating Rate Cards.

Rate cards that have no resource role specified and have at least one of account, region, practice, or group are not considered for matching.

If a rate card has a start date, end date, or both, it's considered for matching according to the start date of the resource request. If the start date of the resource request is within the start and end date range of the rate card, then it's considered for matching based on any of the other criteria. If the start date of the resource request is within the start and end date range of multiple rate cards, all of those rate cards are considered for matching based on any of the other criteria.

Resource requests are only matched to one rate card. For example, if rate cards are set up yearly, and a resource request spans multiple years, the rate card is still only matched based on the start date of the resource request. The rates on the resource request do not change over its duration.

Rate cards can only be matched to resource requests that have the same currency as the rate card.

Rate cards are matched based on only one of Account, Region, Practice, or Group, and precedence determines in which order to apply those fields in order to determine a match. For example, if Account is first in the precedence order, a rate card that matches a resource request’s account is preferable to one that matches its region, practice, or group. Similarly, if there are no rate cards that match a resource request’s account, but there is one that matches the region, that rate card is preferable to any that match the practice or group. If there are no rate cards found that match a resource request's role and account, region, practice, or group, then rate cards that match the role and have no account, region, practice, or group are considered for matching.

For more information about configuring the precedence of these fields, see Configuring Precedence.

If the Cascading Role checkbox is selected on a rate card, it will be matched to resource requests using the region, practice, and group when they are lower in the hierarchy than the region, practice, and group on the rate card. For example, if a rate card's region is North America and the Cascading Role checkbox is selected, resource requests for the USA and Canada regions could be matched with the same rate card.

However, rate cards that are a closer match in the region, practice, and group hierarchies are always preferable. In the same example, for a resource request in the USA region, a USA rate card will always be chosen over a North America rate card if one exists.

Choosing Between Multiple Matches

You can configure how a rate card is selected for matching when multiple equally viable matches are found.

Bill Rate or Margin

You can use the use-highest-bill-rate-cost-rate-margin configuration option in the Resource Requests configuration group to determine if a rate card is selected by comparing either the suggested bill rate and choosing the greatest one, or by choosing the greatest margin. The default of this configuration option is true, which means the rate card with the highest suggested bill rate is used by default.

Rate Card Matcher Plugin API

You can use the Rate Card Matcher plugin API to customize how the best matching rate cards are chosen. The plugin takes all of the rate cards that are equally matched according to the matching criteria, and applies custom logic to choose only one matching rate card. This overrides the use-highest-bill-rate-cost-rate-margin configuration option. If there are no matching rate cards for a resource request, the plugin will not execute because there are no rate cards to choose between. For more information, see Permission Sets and Other Technical Documentation.

If the Rate Card Matching is disabled and a plugin is used, it will send an empty list of rate cards to the plugin. You will then need to independently query the available rate cards in the plugin before applying logic to choose one matching rate card.

Creating Rate Cards

To create a new rate cardClosed Suggested bill rate or average cost rate for a resource role in a region, practice or group. You can use these rates for information purposes in resource requests.:

  1. Do one of the following:
  2. Complete the fields as described in Rate Card Fields.
  3. [Optional] Enter a Resource Role and one of the following for PSA to populate the suggested bill rate and average cost rate automatically when another user creates a resource requestClosed A means of asking for resources for a project or an opportunity.:
    • Account
    • Region,
    • Practice
    • Group
  4. Click Save.
Tip:

You can create a default rate card by leaving the Resource Role, Account, Region, Practice, and Group fields blank. This rate card is used when an appropriate rate card can't be matched to a resource.