Labour Charge Calculator

The Labour Charge Calculator section provides a very powerful tool which, when set up correctly, can maximize profits for your company as it aims to calculate a labour charge while considering all your department costs. However, you may bypass this tool by simply entering your very own charges manually to the Service Report.

Before you are able to use this tool, you will need to choose and configure your charging method as described here. Whichever charging method you choose, it will appear in red text on the Labour Charge Calculator as shown in the screen above .

At the top of the above screen there are ‘Remove Timing’ and ‘Help’ buttons. The ‘Remove Timing’ button is used to delete a timing from the data grid appearing at the bottom of the screen.

To begin using the Labour Charge Calculator, assuming you have already set up a charging method, you will choose either ‘Use Solution Code’ or ‘Enter Solution Manually’ as seen in the picture below. You will use a solution code if a solution code has been added to the Service Report and you wish to calculate a charge for that solution code. You can, however, use the Labour Charge calculator to calculate a charge even when not using solution codes. This is where you click to enter a solution manually.

Next, you will enter the relevant fields in the ‘Add Timing’ box. Choose a ‘Solution Code’ from the drop down list as seen below on the left, or enter a solution in the ‘Solution’ text box as seen below on the right, depending on your choice described in the previous paragraph. The ‘Type’ field may be auto-filled depending on whether you are using a solution code or not. If not, you will need to enter the ‘Type’ manually. Depending on what is chosen in the ‘Type’ field, the ‘Charge’ field may also be auto-filled. For example, if a solution code with a ‘Fixed Charge’ is chosen, the charge will automatically display. However, if a ‘Manual Solution’ is used, you can enter your own fixed charge. If the ‘Type’ is either ‘Hardware’ or ‘Software’ (.i.e Not Fixed), the timer will determine the final charge.

You can now click the ‘Start’ button to begin the timer . The ‘Start Time’ field will be auto-filled. As soon as you complete your work, you can click the ‘Finish’ button  and the ‘Finish Time’ field will be auto-filled as well. At this point, you can click the ‘Save’ button to calculate and register the final charge. This will be displayed in the data grid at the bottom of the top most screen as shown below.

This data grid provides all relevant information related to the timing of the job. It is divided into 3 sections as shown above. These include all charges calculated using the True Costings method, all charges calculated using the Alternative Charge method and all timings which used a fixed charge. The Grand Total will be shown on the bottom row. Once you are finished with this section, you can simply close it by clicking the X in the top right corner. Doing so will possibly pop up two messages:

a. The first asking if you would like to input the ‘Time’ and ‘Costs’ values onto the Service Report. Clicking ‘Yes’ will input those values to their respective fields of the report.

b. The second pop up may ask you if you would like to input the ‘Solution Description’ onto the Service Report. This will be asked only if you used a manual solution on the Labour Charge Calculator. Clicking ‘Yes’ will input the description into either the Hardware or Software text boxes.

The two videos below demonstrate the full process of using the Labour Charge Calculator. The first video uses a solution code while the second video uses a manual solution.