How to set up service and activity types

Service and activity types define what kind of work your team logs time against and what rate it bills at. You can set a single global rate, vary rates by project, vary rates by employee, or combine all three.

Go to Settings > Service & Activity Types to manage your activity types.

Creating an activity type

Click Add Activity Type. Give it a name -- for example, Design, Site Visit, or Project Management. Set it as Billable or Non-Billable, then choose your rate scope.

Billable activities will appear as line items when added to estimates and invoices. Non-billable activities track time only and do not generate revenue.

Rate scope options

Global rate

A global rate applies one hourly rate to this activity across every project and every team member. Use this when the rate never changes regardless of who is doing the work or which project it is on.

Per-project rates

Switch to Per-project rates to set different hourly rates for specific projects. Any project not listed here falls back to the global rate. This is useful when your design fee varies by project scope or client agreement.

If billing varies across projects, every project that needs a specific rate must have one defined explicitly. You cannot rely on the global rate as a fallback for some projects and override others selectively. If an employee works across multiple projects at different rates, each project needs that employee's rate set explicitly.

Per-employee rates

Use this to assign employee-specific rates for this activity type.

• If an employee is listed in the per-employee section, they are locked to that rate only. They cannot access the global rate or any per-project rate for this activity.

• If an employee is not listed, they use the per-project rate if one exists, or the global rate if not.

• Admin follows the same rule -- if admin is not listed in the per-employee section, admin uses the per-project rate. If admin is listed, admin uses only their assigned rate.

The all-or-nothing rule

The moment you add any employee to the per-employee section, you must add all employees whose rates vary for this activity. If you only list some employees, the unlisted ones lose access to this activity type entirely.

There is no partial override. It is all or nothing.

The same rule applies at the project level. Once you assign a rate to one project, any other project where this activity bills at a different rate must also have its rate explicitly set. If billing varies by both project and employee, you need to set every combination.

Rate priority order

When a team member logs time, Indema applies rates in this order -- highest priority first:

1. Per-employee rate -- always takes precedence if the employee is listed

2. Per-project rate -- applies to anyone not listed in the per-employee section

3. Global rate -- applies when no project or employee overrides exist

Example

Your studio has three people: you (admin), a senior designer, and a junior designer. You create a Drafting activity type.

• If you want everyone to bill at $115/hr, set a global rate of $115 and leave the per-employee section empty. All three can use Drafting at that rate.

• If the senior designer bills at $125/hr and the junior at $90/hr, you must add all three of you to the per-employee section -- yourself included -- with your respective rates. If you only add the senior designer, you and the junior lose access to Drafting entirely.

• If Drafting rates also vary by project, use per-project rates in addition. Each project where rates differ must have its own rate defined -- and if employees have different rates on those projects, each employee-project combination needs to be set explicitly.