Timekeeper Rate Sheets | Overview
Tracker's timekeeper rate review feature lets law firms establish timekeeper billing rates with client companies. A client company can ask a firm to submit proposed timekeeper rates in a rate sheet or an annual rate review. After the rate sheet is submitted in Tracker, the client company reviews the rates. After the approval process is completed, both the firm and the client company have a record of the established rates.
Required role | Firm sysem administrators, firm office administrators, and firm users who have billing permissions can create rate sheets. Company System Administrators can upload rate sheets on behalf of firms.
Rate sheets are created in one of two ways:
- A firm creates a rate sheet directly in Tracker based on the information from previously submitted invoices.
- A firm creates a rate sheet file in another program (such as Microsoft Excel) then uploads the file to Tracker.
note
A firm's client company can create or upload a rate sheet on behalf of the firm. The client company will let the firm know if and how rate sheets should be created.
How the annual rate sheet review works
The following describes the annual rate sheet review process:
- A client company asks a firm to use Tracker to submit proposed billing rates for all timekeepers in one sheet. The sheet has a designated effective date (such as the beginning of the next fiscal year), and includes information about each timekeeper’s location and professional classification.
- Tracker compares the rates in that sheet to historical rates for each timekeeper and also to rates for timekeepers in the same metro areas, in the same professional classifications and working on the same matter types, and presents that information to the company rate reviewer in a rate analysis table.
- The rate reviewer completes one of the following:
- Approves the entire set of rates.
- Approves the set with changes to rates for individual timekeepers.
- Rejects the entire set of rates.
- Tracker sends the appropriate notifications, which include:
- If the rate reviewer changes or rejects the rate sheet, Tracker automatically notifies the law firm.
- If the rate reviewer changes the effective date, Tracker does not notify the law firm.