Set your workshop labour rate

Open Vehicles, then Workshop Settings. The Workshop labour rate is the first thing on the page.

It is free, and it applies to your whole business.

What it does

The rate pre-fills the labour line on new jobs and invoices. It is a starting point, not a lock: change the rate on an individual job whenever the work justifies it, and the change stays on that job.

Until you set it, we use 135 dollars an hour. That default exists so a brand new account can raise an invoice on day one, not because it is a recommendation. Set your own before you quote anything.

Picking the number

Use the rate you already charge. If you are not sure what that is, work back from a recent job: what you invoiced for labour, divided by the hours you actually spent, including the diagnostic time you did not bill. That number is usually lower than the rate on the wall, and it is the honest one.

A rate you review once a year rather than never is worth more than a rate you agonise over now.

Where the rate does not reach

• Parts pricing comes from the parts catalogue, from cost plus markup or a fixed sale price. See build the parts catalogue.
• Capped-price services on the public booking page carry their own prices. See set up the capped-price service menu.
• Warranty work is paid at the manufacturer's rate, not yours. There is no per-manufacturer rate field; this is the only labour rate in the product.
• Insurance repairs carry an assessed labour figure separate from your rate. Comparing the two is the point of that module. See track insurance repair claims.

After you change it

Existing jobs and invoices keep the rate they were created with. Only new ones pick up the new figure. That is on purpose: a rate rise should not quietly restate a quote a customer already has.

The rest of that page

There are five more settings on the same screen, including your default service intervals and what prints on a customer's service record. See workshop settings beyond the labour rate.