Report on Rates and Profitability

Reporting on Rates and Profitability brings your Billing Rates and Cost Rates together so you can understand project margin, client performance, and how your team’s time is being used. This article explains how rates flow into ClickTime reports and which tools to use for high-level profitability, detailed analysis, and validation.

Prerequisites:

• Time Billing Features enabled in Company > Preferences > General Information.
  
• Billing Rates configured in Company > Preferences > Billing Rates and on Person/Project/Task details.
  
• Cost Rates configured on the Person Details page (hourly and/or salaried).
  
• Billable status set correctly (by Project or by Task).
  

Jump to a section:

• Key concepts: Billable Amount, Total Cost, and Profit
• Check your rate setup before reporting
• Profitability Summary report
• Other reports that use rates
• Customizable Data Export (CDE)
• Rate Card export
• Best practices
• Troubleshooting

Key concepts: Billable Amount, Total Cost, and Profit

Most rate-based reports in ClickTime work with three related values:

• Billable Amount – The revenue side. Calculated from the time entry’s Billing Rate multiplied by the number of billable hours.
• Total Cost – The cost side. Calculated from the time entry’s Cost Rate (hourly or adjusted salaried) multiplied by the hours worked.
• Profit (or Margin) – The difference between Billable Amount and Total Cost for the entries in your report.

Important: Cost Rates and profitability metrics in ClickTime are intended for estimation and operational reporting. They are not a replacement for payroll or accounting systems.

Check your rate setup before reporting

Before relying on profitability numbers, confirm that your rate configuration matches your billing and costing rules.

• Billing Rate structure – In Company > Preferences > Billing Rates, confirm whether you are using a Basic model (by Person, by Project, or by Task) or an Advanced model (defaults with exceptions).
• Billable status – Verify whether billable is set by Project or Task, and review the Billable flag on your Projects or Tasks. Only billable time contributes to Billable Amount.
• Cost Rates – Confirm hourly Cost Rates (and, if used, salaried Cost per Timesheet and Projected Cost per Hour) are set correctly on the Person Details page.
• Historical changes – If you recently changed rates, verify whether you applied those changes to existing time entries and for which date range.

For configuration help, see Set Up Rates in Company Preferences, Billing Rates (Basic), Billing Rates (Advanced), Cost Rates (Hourly), and Cost Rates (Salaried).

Profitability Summary report

The Profitability Summary report is the primary standard profitability report in ClickTime. It provides a high-level view of revenue, cost, and profit over a selected date range, typically grouped by project.

• Go to Company > Reports.
• In the Project section, choose Profitability Summary.
• Select your date range, projects/clients, and other filters.
• Run the report.

Depending on your options, the report can show columns such as:

• Billable Hours and Non-billable Hours
• Billable Amount (from Billing Rates)
• Total Cost (from Cost Rates)
• Profit and Margin percentages

For more granular or custom analysis, you can combine this report with Customizable Data Export (CDE) to drill into the underlying entries.

Other reports that use rates

Depending on your plan and configuration, you may also have additional classic reports that include Billing Rate and Cost Rate–based columns. Names and availability vary by account, but common examples include:

• Project cost / margin reports – Focus on a single project or group of projects and show hours, cost, billable amount, and profit in more detail.
  
• Client-level summaries – Roll up cost and billable amount by client to see which clients contribute most to revenue and profit.
  
• Person / Employee summaries – Compare cost and billable amounts by person to understand utilization and contribution to margin.
  
   

When browsing Company > Reports, look for report descriptions mentioning billable amount, cost, or profitability.

If your account has a limited set of profitability reports, you can still perform detailed margin analysis using the Profitability Summary report together with CDE.

Customizable Data Export (CDE)

The Customizable Data Export (CDE) is the most flexible way to inspect how rates are applied at the individual time entry level.

• Go to Company > Reports and choose Customizable Data Export.
• Select the date range and any filters (projects, people, clients, tasks).
• Include columns such as Billing Rate, Cost Rate, Billable Amount, and Total Cost.
• Export to a spreadsheet to sort, filter, and pivot as needed.

CDE is especially useful when you:

• Want to verify that a new rate model is being applied correctly.
• Need to spot-check historical changes (before vs after a rate update).
• Plan to build your own custom profitability analysis outside ClickTime.

Rate Card export

The Rate Card export helps you verify your Billing Rate configuration without looking at time entries.

• Go to Company > Reports.
• In the Miscellaneous section, choose Rate Card.
• Run and download the Excel file.

The Rate Card shows the rates currently in effect for your Billing Rate model (including defaults and exceptions), so you can confirm that the right Person/Project/Task/Client combinations are using the expected values.

Best practices

• Align with Finance before finalizing rates. Make sure your Billing Rates, Cost Rates, and billable status reflect how Finance expects to invoice and analyze margin.
• Lock down historical changes. Use Security and Audit Log settings to control who can change rates for existing entries, and document when and why major rate changes are made.
• Spot-check with CDE. When you update rate structures or apply bulk changes, export a small date range in CDE to confirm results before relying on summary reports.
• Review incomplete timesheets for salaried staff. Incomplete timesheets can inflate hourly cost after Adjust Salaried Costs. Use completeness checks to keep data clean.
• Use consistent date ranges. When comparing profitability across clients or projects, use the same date range and filtering to get apples-to-apples comparisons.

Troubleshooting

• “Profit looks wrong for a project.” Check that Billing Rates and Cost Rates are set correctly for the people and tasks involved, and verify that you’ve applied any recent rate changes to historical entries where appropriate.
• “Billable Amount is zero for entries I expected to bill.” Confirm that the related Project or Task is marked as Billable and that the time entries are not marked as non-billable.
• “Costs seem too high (or too low) for salaried staff.” Review the person’s Cost per Timesheet, check for incomplete timesheets, and confirm that Adjust Salaried Costs has been run for the period.
• “I changed a rate but reports didn't update.” Make sure you used the option to apply changes to existing entries (if needed) and that your report filters (dates, projects, people) include those entries.
• "I updated rates but the rate card report is not reflecting them": The rate card report is a real time export of the current rates being stored in the account.  If you are not seeing a recent rate change here, verify the Billing Rate Model you are using and how billing rates are structured (Company >> Preferences >> Billing Rates).  Confirm the change you made aligns with the current structure and how ClickTime organizes your billing rates (People vs. Project and so on).  If you need further assistance, reach out to ClickTime Support (support@clicktime.com).
• “Managers can't see cost or profit.” Check their permissions on the Person Details pages and whether they have access to see Cost Rates and cost-based report columns.