Appendix B: Job Codes, Explained
Intro: This appendix explains what the concept of “job codes” means in SMMware, and how it may be useful to you. In short, job codes allow you to charge a different hourly rate for different tasks (Packing, Organizing, etc).
In understanding a concept it is often helpful to understand the relevant history. The first and simplest approach to charging clients is to add up the hours, then multiple that total by a rate to arrive at the dollar amount.
However, what if you want to charge $60/hr for Packing, and $80/hr for work on Floorplans? If you hold a 3 hour consultation with a potential client and want to give the first hour free and then charge for the remainder, how should the software you use handle that? What if you want to charge $70/hr for time that you, as company owner, spend in packing, but $60/hr for time spent by your employees?
The concept of “Job codes” came about in response to the above questions. A “Job Code” is basically the combination of a label (like Packing), and an hourly rate. A job code also has a ‘ user level’ associated with it, which determines who can use that job code (All employees? Just Team Leads? Just the owner?)
Examples:
1) ‘Packing – Associate’: $60/hr,
2) ‘Packing – Company Owner’: $70/hr,
3) ‘Floorplans’: $80/hr
Job Codes are defined once in the system, and shared across all jobs. Each job does not have a separate set of job codes. The next page will help clarify by example.
There are two basic approaches to how you can charge a client in SMMware:
1) Using the same hourly rate regardless of task type
2) Using a different hourly rate per task type, labelled as ‘ job codes’
The same concept above for the rates you charge clients also applies to the rates at which you pay your associates.
1) They can be paid the same rate regardless of task type, with the rate being pulled from their associate profile. Each associate profile has its own rate so, for example, an experienced employee can be paid $25/hr and a new inexperienced one can be paid $20/hr. But they will get that rate regardless of task type.
2) They can be paid a different rate depending on task type, in which case the rate is being pulled from the job code.
But what if you want to BOTH pay associates different rates depending on AND different rates depending on their experience? This situation is more complicated, but SMMware can still handle it. The answer to this additional wrinkle is to have multiple SETS of job codes, one for experienced employees and one for the newbies. Employees are assigned to an experience level (Junior, Senior). Everyone within that group gets paid the same, but can be paid differently per task type.
Even though your specific scheme for charging clients and paying associates may get complicated, once we set it it up in SMMware it is still easy to actually use because the different groups only see the appropriate options.
FAQs
Q1) Do I have to choose one approach and then use that for every job?
A1) No, one particular job can charge the client based on one overall hourly rate, while another job can charge based on job codes. The choice is made in the Job Profile for each job.
Q2) Can you clarify the difference between the concepts of “Job Types” and “Job Codes”?
A2) Each job has one and only one “Job Type” assigned to it. The job type is intended to describe the overall goal of the job. Various kinds of tasks can be involved. For example, a “Downsize and Move” job may require 5 or more job codes to describe the various kinds of work involved, like “Packing” and “Floorplan”.
If the overall goal of a given job is very simple, like “Packing”, then it may only call for a single job code (like “Packing”). At that basic level, job codes do in fact become redundant, and you could just use the single hourly rate approach, without job codes.
Q3) For packing materials, do I use job codes?
A3) No, job codes only apply to hourly work, and are a way to indicate the hourly rate to charge. If you want to account for packing materials on a box by box basis, you can use SMMware’s “Inventory” command. If you feel that it is too much effort to track each box and want to charge a single blanket fee for packing materials, you can use SMMware’s “Flat Fee” command.