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Bill rate rules for bill agreements determine the rate of billing that applies depending on the pay code conditions that are met as a result of the pay agreement interpretation process. That is, the pay agreement interpretation process allocates time or units against certain pay codes, depending on the pay code conditions that are applicable. Bill rate rules then determine the applicable bill rates for each of the pay codes against which time or units are allocated by the pay interpretation process. In this way, Rates and Rules generates billing data that is passed onto the Billing application in order to generate and distribute invoices to clients.

Each pay-dependent bill agreement configured within Rates and Rules can include multiple bill rate rules. However, only one pay rate rule can be valid at any given time for each hierarchy level/hierarchy value/pay code condition combination at any given time (for more information, see below).

In Rates and Rules, a bill rate rule within a pay-dependent agreement is configured by defining the following:

• agreement hierarchy level and hierarchy value to which the rule belongs

• validity period of the rule

• applicable pay code condition

• applicable rounding type

• one or more margin/markup types.

Hierarchy Level and Hierarchy Value

The hierarchy level determines the level of the agreement hierarchy to which the bill rate rule belongs. The hierarchy value is the actual object to which the rule is assigned at the selected hierarchy level. For example, if the rule is assigned to the brand level of the agreement hierarchy, the hierarchy value is the name of the agency brand to which the rule applies.

Rates and Rules determines which pay/bill rate rule within an agreement will determine the applicable pay or bill rate by searching for a valid bill rate rule from the bottom of the agreement hierarchy up. For example, if there is a bill rate rule for the payee who has filled the corresponding job order, the payee rate will be used in favour of a job order or client rate.

Note that whether a bill rate rule is valid depends on the validity period of the rule (for more information, see below).

Hierarchy Group

A bill rate rule can also be assigned to a hierarchy group, which is an additional, customisable category that can be used in conjunction with hierarchy levels and hierarchy values to determine if a bill rate rule is applicable. For example, in addition to being assigned to a hierarchy level and hierarchy value, a bill rate rule may also be assigned to a hierarchy group. To determine if a bill rate rule is applicable when a bill item is processed during bill interpretation, the system searches the agreement hierarchy based on a combination of hierarchy level, hierarchy value and hierarchy group to find a matching bill rate rule. If a match is not found based the combination hierarchy level, hierarchy value and hierarchy group, the system will perform a second parse of the hierarchy for a match based on hierarchy level and hierarchy value only.

It is not mandatory to assign a bill rate rule to a hierarchy group and you can only assign a bill rate rule to a hierarchy group if hierarchy group functionality is enabled in Maintenance> Hierarchy > Country > Hierarchy Group.

Validity Period

Each bill rate rule has a validity period. The validity period defines the date on which a bill rate becomes valid and the date on which the rule expires. Note that the validity period is critical in determining the bill rate rule to apply, especially if the rate rules within an agreement are assigned to different levels of the agreement hierarchy. For example, consider the following scenario:

Timesheet Period: 26/10/2009 – 01/11/2009 (Mon-Sun)

Client Rate Valid: 01/01/2009 – 31/12/2009

Job Order Rate Valid: 28/10/2009 – 10/11/2009

In this scenario, the following would apply:

• for the dates 26/10/2009 & 27/10/2010 (Monday and Tuesday) the client rate would apply

• for the dates 28/10/2009 – 01/11/2009 (Wednesday until Sunday) the job order rate would apply.

Only one bill rate rule with the same pay code condition can be created at any given agreement hierarchy level/hierarchy value within a given validity period.

Pay Code Condition

The pay code condition determines the type of pay code, as produced because of the pay interpretation process, that will trigger the bill rate rule.

If the pay code condition is All Conditions, the bill rate rule will be triggered regardless of the pay code that is derived from the pay interpretation process for a pay item. Where this pay code condition applies and the bill code rule is triggered, the resulting bill amount will be billed against the bill code to which the payment pay code is linked to in Bill Code Maintenance.

If the pay code condition is Pay Code Type, the bill rate rule will be triggered only if the pay code that is derived from the pay interpretation process is of a specific type, where the pay code type can be one of the following:

• Ordinary

• Overtime

• Allowance

• Leave

• Reimbursement

Where this pay code condition applies and the bill code rule is triggered, the resulting bill amount will be billed against the bill code to which the payment pay code is linked to in Bill Code Maintenance.

If the pay code condition is Pay Code only, the bill rate rule will be triggered only if a specific pay code is derived from the pay interpretation process for a pay item, whereby the relevant pay code must be selected from a list of all available pay codes. Where this pay code condition applies and the bill code rule is triggered, the resulting bill amount will be billed against a specific bill code that must be selected in the Bill Code field on the bill rate rule, which will default to the bill code to which the payment pay code is linked to in Bill Code Maintenance.

Rounding

A bill rate rule defines how the bill result of the bill rate rule is to be rounded. That is, the bill result can be rounded up or down to a specific number of decimal places or it can be truncated to a specific number of decimal places.