Billing Types

Overview

VesselOne supports two billing types per work order: Estimate and Charge-up (Time & Materials). The billing type is set at work order creation and cannot be changed once time entries have been logged.

Estimate

The client pays the agreed estimate total, regardless of actual hours worked. Labour rates are used internally only — for tracking margin (estimate vs actual cost).

Use Estimate for: annual services at a set rate, agreed scope jobs, or when you have a firm estimate agreed with the client.

Charge-up (Time & Materials)

The client is billed at your company's published rates for each hour worked, plus materials at cost. The work order billing summary shows a full line-item breakdown suitable for invoicing.

Use Charge-up for: diagnostic work, emergency repairs, or ongoing maintenance where the exact scope is unknown.

How Rates Are Applied

For Charge-up work orders, the rate used for each time entry is determined in this order:

1. 1Profile override — if the assigned technician has an individual rate set on their profile, that rate is used.
2. 2Company role tier rate — the default rate for the technician's role (e.g. Technician: $85/hr) set in Settings → Rates.
3. 3No rate — if neither is set, the time entry has no billable rate and a warning is shown.

Margin Tracking

For Estimate work orders, VesselOne tracks the difference between the agreed estimate total and the actual cost (time at internal rates + materials). This margin figure is visible to Company Admins in the work order overview but is never shared with vessel owners.

Billable vs Non-Billable Work Orders

Each work order has an Is Billable flag. Set this to false for internal or business work (e.g. yard maintenance, staff training, tooling repairs) that is not chargeable to any client. Non-billable work orders still track time but exclude those hours from utilisation reports.