Cost rates are how Productive knows what your team's time costs. Without one, a person can't track time, and any bookings you add for them carry no cost, so the budget and deal costs you see are incomplete.
Here's how to add a cost rate, assign a holiday calendar, and find anyone who's missing one.
👉 New to cost rates? Start with Understanding Cost Rates
Who Can Manage Cost Rates
By default, only Admins can see and manage cost rates. To give someone else access, turn on Add, edit, and delete cost rates in a custom permission set and assign it to them.
📌 People can't see their own cost rates by default. To allow it, turn on View personal cost rates in a custom permission set.
Adding a Cost Rate
Productive asks for a cost rate when you invite someone. If you skipped it, you can add one later:
Go to Settings > Users or Resourcing > Employees, then select an employee or contractor.
Open the Cost Rates tab and click Add cost rate.
Choose the cost rate type: annual, monthly, bi-weekly, weekly, or hourly.
Enter the amount, select the currency, and set the work hours per day.
Check or clear Adds organization overhead to cost rate. Keep it checked for employees. Clear it for contractors who have no overhead.
Click Create cost rate.
Once saved, the Cost Rates tab shows the person's Current Hourly Cost and their capacity for the current month.
📌 You can schedule another cost rate to start later. For example, end one rate in three months and start the next one right after, so a planned raise applies on the right date.
👉 Learn how overhead cost works.
👉 See how current hourly cost is calculated.
👉 Use different rates on a single budget or deal with custom cost rates.
👉 Set up bi-weekly schedules with alternating cost rates.
Holiday Calendars
Assign a holiday calendar to each person based on where they work. This is useful for remote teams in different countries.
The calendar marks that person's bank holidays in the Resource Planner, the Workload layout, and My Time. They aren't expected to work those days, so their capacity goes down.
Check That Everyone Has a Cost Rate
Without a cost rate, a person can't track time or request time off. Use the Time report to spot anyone who's missing one:
Go to the Reports tab and click + Report.
Select the Time report from the templates.
Check the Capacity column.
📌 If someone's Capacity shows zero hours, they don't have a cost rate yet.
👉 To fix a wrong or overlapping rate, see Updating or Deleting Cost Rates. It also covers the Payroll report.