Billing surcharges

General information

Surcharges are calculated during billing and they show on the invoice, increasing the accounts receivable balance. Surcharges don't change or increase the WIP balance and they don't add a new WIP transaction for the surcharge amount.
You can view the surcharge amount on the Summary tab of Detail Billing once you've entered billing amounts that trigger a surcharge.
Surcharges triggered when a specific activity is billed can calculate based on an amount per-hour billed/adjusted or a percent of the billed amount (but not a flat charge).
Surcharges triggered when anything on a particular engagement is billed can be either a flat amount or based on the activity.
For percentage-based surcharges, if you want a 10% surcharge, you'd enter
10.0
percent, not
110
.
Surcharges will show on the invoice in the Billing Recap section. Example:

note
If there's no surcharge calculated for an invoice, the surcharge area of the billing recap is automatically hidden.
If the surcharge line is displaying on your invoice, but there is no amount for that area that would indicate a change to the format was made that prevents the suppression of the field if zero.
The label (for example, Surcharge) used can be changed by editing the invoice format if you want to use a different word.

Surcharge setup

Select
Setup
, then
Clients
.
Go to the
Engagements
tab.
Select the engagement that you want a surcharge to calculate for when amounts are billed for that engagement.
Go to the
Surcharges
tab.
Choose either
Based on Activity
or
Flat amount
(see the following for specifics of each method).
If you choose
Flat amount
, specify the surcharge amount that will calculate each time any WIP entry is billed for this engagement on this client.
If you choose
Based on Activity
, the surcharge will only calculate if this particular activity is billed for this engagement on this client.
note
For this to work, you'll need to also go to
Setup
, then
Activities
and enter surcharge information in the
Main
tab of each applicable activity. In the activity setup screen, choose either the
Hourly
or
Percentage
method.
If you ever want to discontinue surcharges, change the setting on the engagement or activity to
No Surcharge
.

Engagement flat amount

If a client uses the flat amount method, anytime an invoice has a billing amount for a WIP item coded to that engagement, the flat amount specified will be charged as a surcharge.
Multiple WIP items billed on the same invoice will note trigger more surcharges, nor will a surcharge be triggered if the WIP item for that engagement is only adjusted (but not billed).

Activity amount per hour surcharges

A client will use this method if they choose
Based on Activity
for the method and
Hourly
for the surcharge method on the activity setup screen.
If a WIP transaction with that specific activity is billed (and the WIP transaction has the proper engagement as well), then a surcharge will be calculated.
If this activity also appears under a different engagement, billing that other engagement's WIP won't trigger the surcharge.
The amount charged will be the number of hours "relieved" multiplied by the hourly amount specified on the activity's setup screen.
If a client uses this method, Practice CS does take into consideration the number of WIP adjustments as well as billings since adjustments also relieve WIP.
For example: A WIP transaction is entered for 1.00 hours @ $100 per hour (WIP amount = $100). The activity setup screen has a $10 per hour surcharge. If you bill $50 and adjust -$25, the surcharge will be $7.50.
note
The surcharge isn't affected by the WIP being billed more than standard. In other words, you'll never get more surcharge than the hourly amount specified on the activity multiplied by the number of hours on the original WIP transaction.

Activity percentage surcharges

A client will use this method if they choose
Based on Activity
for the method and
Percentage
for the surcharge method on the activity setup screen.
If a WIP transaction with that specific activity is billed (and the WIP transaction has the engagement as well), then a surcharge will be calculated.
If this activity also appears under a different engagement, billing that other engagement's WIP won't trigger the surcharge.
The amount charged will be the percent specified on the activity multiplied by the amount billed on that particular transaction.
For example: A WIP transaction is entered for 1.00 hours @ $100 per hour (WIP amount = $100). The activity setup screen has a 10% surcharge. If bill $50 (regardless of adjustment), the surcharge will be $5. Unlike the per hour method, the amount adjusted has no bearing on the surcharge calculated. Also, the system will calculate the additional surcharge if you bill more than the standard value of the WIP. Using the same example as the previous section, if you bill $200 on the $100 WIP item (such that you are billing more than the value of the WIP), the surcharge calculated is $20.00.