Navigate to your firm’s Billing Settings by:
Click your profile picture
Choose Settings
Select Billing Settings
This is where you can access:
Service Items
User Rates
Add Service Items
Now, let’s add service items to reference in future invoices and proposals.
Service items automatically set the billing rate and other information on invoices, helping to build proposals with the correct descriptions, tasks, and terms. By adding service items for each service your firm offers, you can efficiently invoice your clients and ensure consistent proposals.
To make a new service item:
Click Create new service item
Name your service item
Include an optional invoice description
Enter a Billable Rate
Enter a service charge
Then choose if this should be charged per service (flat rate) or per hour
Enter a Tax Rate
Enter a service item code
Add a proposal description – this appears in proposals sent to clients
Attach task template(s) – tasks are created automatically when the proposal is accepted
Attach a terms template or add service terms – so the correct engagement letter language is included
If you have integrated with QBO, you can also assign an Income account and a product category. These fields are synced from QBO and can be used in Canopy
Edit a Service Item
You can edit a service item by clicking the name in the table.
You can make any changes here. Then click Update.
Archive Service Items
You can also archive service items by selecting one or more items in the checkbox. Then, click the archive button that appears on the table header.
This moves the item to inactive status, so you can’t pull this into an invoice. To access inactive items, click the three dots icon. To move it back to active status, click the checkbox and select Move to Active.
Set User Rates
Lastly, let’s talk about setting user rates.
Canopy allows you to set custom rates for each team member in Canopy. You can also set a default company rate.
These rates are applied when viewing WIP reports and configuring invoices. If you link time entries to invoices, setting a user rate is super nice because Canopy will do all the math for you!
Setting these up is quite easy. You can set a default company rate here. And this applies to all of your team members in your Canopy instance.
You have the option of filling in rates for each team member as well. If you leave any blank, it defaults to the company rate above.
Any changes you make here are saved automatically.
Set Adjusted User Rates
You can assign multiple rates to an invoice based on who in the firm performed the work and what kind of work was accomplished.
For instance, your firm has a default rate that you charge for a particular service. However, in certain circumstances, you may want to charge a higher or lower rate based on when a specific staff member performed a service OR if a different service was performed by that staff member than they typically perform.
Use Cases
Rates for More Experienced Staff or Specialized Services: A CPA at your firm typically doesn’t perform tax preparation for individual clients, but took on a special case and wants to charge a higher rate for when they perform that service.
Rates for Discounts: Your firm is trying to get more bookkeeping clients and you want to offer those services at a discounted rate for a few of your staff members.
Special Cases: Your firm typically doesn’t offer a service like auditing to the majority of your clients, but there are some exceptions you make for large clients. In these cases, you want to charge a higher rate when a designated staff member performs these services.
You might need to adjust rates for team members depending on the service. If you are working with hourly rates, this allows firms to set up different rates for each team member for the same service item.
Click on the dashed line under this column. In this window, you can choose the item and enter an adjusted rate.
Now, when this team member invoices for that item - it will be given that rate instead of the default service item rate.