# Rate Sheets

How to open the Rate Sheets list, read a rate sheet, build one from your line items on the Labour Costs, Equipment and Materials and Fixed Price tabs, and apply it to a client or a job.

Source: https://getjobbook.com/help/Rate_Sheets
Last updated: 2026-09-17

## Key Concepts

A rate sheet is a price list: the charge-out rates for your labour, equipment and materials. In Job Book it is a set of [line items](https://getjobbook.com/help/Administration_Settings#line-items)
and their prices, saved under a name. The prices you set for the individual line items can be overwritten in the
rate sheet, so you can price the same items differently for different clients or contract types without
recreating them. What rate sheets do for your pricing is on the [Rate Sheets](https://getjobbook.com/features/rate-sheets) product page; this page is how to build one.

For example, a customer might have negotiated a set price for the line items you will charge them. You can create
a rate sheet specifically for that customer and apply it to all the jobs that you do for them, and any work done
for those jobs will be billed out at that special rate-sheet price.

- **Billable Line Items**: the body of the rate sheet, on the tabs **Labour Costs**, **Equipment and
  Materials** and **Fixed Price**. They correspond to the three collections of line items you set up in
  [Administration Settings](https://getjobbook.com/help/Administration_Settings#line-items).
- **Naming**: name a rate sheet for what it covers, so you can tell it apart in the picker on a client or a job.
  Sheets are typically named for a job type (Subdivision Survey, Boundary Survey), for a client (City of
  Springfield), or for a contract (Bechtel Contract #783CS1872), with one baseline sheet called Standard Rates.
  Where prices are renegotiated every year, a common pattern is to put the year in the name (2026 Standard Rate
  Sheet, 2025 Standard Rate Sheet) and keep the older sheets alongside it.

Creating rate sheets is an Administrator job.

## Performing Common Tasks

### Opening the Rate Sheets list

On the dashboard, in the **Rate Sheets** card, click **Explore**. You can also click **Navigate** in the top-left
corner, expand the **Bidding** group, then click **Rate Sheets**.

![The Rate Sheets card on the dashboard, with Explore marked](https://getjobbook.com/_astro/rate-sheets-card-explore.CoBf3QUM.png)

*Explore is where you check what a sheet charges before pointing a client or a job at it, and where a sheet is retired once its prices are superseded.*

The list opens on the **Active** view.

![The Rate Sheets list on the Active view](https://getjobbook.com/_astro/rate-sheet-list.BEIEfgRB.png)

*Your price lists, one card each. Name them for what they cover, because the name is all you see in the picker on a client or a job.*

- **Active** shows the rate sheets still in use. Click **All** to see the active and inactive sheets together.
- Type into the search box, which reads "Type and press Enter to search", and press Enter, or click **Search**, to
  narrow the list.
- **Create** opens a blank rate sheet form and **Export to Excel** downloads the list. Both buttons appear above
  and below the cards.
- Each card reads **Name:** followed by the rate sheet's name. Click a card to open that rate sheet.

### Viewing a rate sheet

Clicking a card opens its display view, which is read-only. The buttons above and below the record are **Edit**,
**Export to PDF**, **Clone**, **Delete** and **Back**, which returns you to the list.

![The display view of a rate sheet, open on the Labour Costs tab](https://getjobbook.com/_astro/rate-sheet-display.DakFo-Kq.png)

*Clone copies this sheet as the start of a new one, which is quicker than building from nothing.*

- **Name** and **Notes** are shown at the top.
- **Billable Line Items:** holds the three tabs. Each tab lists the line items on this sheet and the price the
  sheet gives them, in the columns described under [Adding a line item](#adding-a-line-item).
- Every column carries a filter funnel and the **#** column sorts, so a long sheet can be narrowed to the item you
  are looking for.
- **Active:** at the bottom shows whether the rate sheet is still in use.

### Creating a rate sheet

There are two ways in, and both do the same thing:

- On the dashboard, in the **Rate Sheets** card, click **Create New**.
- Click **Navigate** in the top-left corner, expand the **Bidding** group, click **Rate Sheets**, then click
  **Create**.

![The Rate Sheets card on the dashboard, with Create New marked](https://getjobbook.com/_astro/rate-sheets-card.DB_WfydC.png)

*Only an Administrator's card has Create New.*

The form opens titled **Create**.

![The top of the blank Create form for a rate sheet, on the Labour Costs tab](https://getjobbook.com/_astro/rate-sheet-create.DyZRiCFq.png)

*A rate sheet is only a name and the items you add to it. Work through every tab before you save.*

- **Name**: required, and marked with a red star. This is the name that appears in the list and in the pickers on
  a client and a job.
- **Notes**: free text.
- **Billable Line Items:** the tabs. Work through them and add whatever line items and rates you want on
  this sheet.
- **Active**: a checkbox below the tabs, ticked on a new rate sheet.

Click **Save** to create the rate sheet. **Cancel** leaves without saving.

### Adding a line item

Start on the **Labour Costs** tab and click **+ Add new line item**. A row opens for editing in the grid, and a
note beside the button reads "Click Done to apply changes."

![The Labour Costs grid with the first row open for editing](https://getjobbook.com/_astro/rate-sheet-line-item-editor.CNh20gXF.png)

*Unit $ is the one you change: it becomes the price on every job that uses this sheet.*

The row you are editing holds:

- **#**: the row's position in the list.
- **Item**: the dropdown you pick an existing cost item from. The items are the ones set up under
  [Labour Cost Items](https://getjobbook.com/help/Administration_Settings#labour-cost-items) in Administration Settings.
- **Name**: the item's name.
- **Unit**: the unit the item is measured in.
- **Unit $**: the price for one unit. This is the price you override.
- **Hour $**: the hourly cost, on the **Labour Costs** tab only.
- **Tax Ex**: a tax exempt checkbox.
- **Done** and **Cancel** at the right of the row. Click **Done** to apply the row.

The name, the unit, the unit cost, the hourly cost and tax exempt are all auto-populated from what you set up in
the line item itself. When you create a rate sheet you can override that default price: if the item's unit cost
is $125 and you change it to $130 on this sheet, then when you use this rate sheet on a job the price for that
item defaults to $130.

Rows already on the sheet carry **Edit** and **Delete** buttons at their right, and arrows beside the **#** column
to move a row up or down.

### The other two tabs

Click the **Equipment and Materials** tab and add items the same way: **+ Add new line item**, pick the item, adjust
the price, click **Done**.

![The Equipment and Materials tab of a rate sheet, with an empty grid](https://getjobbook.com/_astro/rate-sheet-equipment-and-materials.DWLd0czD.png)

*Equipment and fixed price items have no hourly cost, so the Hour $ column is gone.*

The row is the same without **Hour $**, and the items you can pick are the ones set up under
[Equipment and Materials](https://getjobbook.com/help/Administration_Settings#equipment-and-materials) in Administration Settings.

The third tab, **Fixed Price**, works the same way and carries the same columns. Its items are the ones set up
under [Fixed Price Items](https://getjobbook.com/help/Administration_Settings#fixed-price-items).

Once you have added line items to each tab, click **Save**.

### Cloning a rate sheet

**Clone**, on a rate sheet's display view, is the way to make a variant. Open the sheet closest to what you want,
click **Clone**, change the copy and save it.

That is usually how a set of rate sheets is built: one baseline sheet, cloned into the sheets for particular job
types, contracts and clients.

### Retiring a rate sheet

A rate sheet you no longer use can be taken out of circulation instead of deleted:

- Open the rate sheet and click **Edit**.
- Clear the **Active** checkbox below the tabs.
- Click **Save**.

The sheet drops out of the **Active** view of the list; the **All** view still shows it. **Delete**, on the
display view, removes a rate sheet only while nothing refers to it. Once a client's **Rate Sheet** field points at
the sheet, **Delete** is refused with the message "Unable to delete this record because it is referenced by other
data", so a sheet that has been used is retired, not deleted.

### Applying a rate sheet to a client or a job

A rate sheet does nothing on its own. It is applied in one of two places:

- On a client, in its **Rate Sheet** field; each new job for that client then starts on that sheet's prices. See
  [Clients](https://getjobbook.com/help/Clients).
- On a job, in the job form's own **Rate Sheet** picker, already filled in from the client, with a button under
  it that replaces the job's line items with the sheet's. See [Job Setup](https://getjobbook.com/help/Job_Setup#adding-line-items).

Some of our customers create a rate sheet for every job they bid, then apply it to that job.

### Standard Rates

On the dashboard, in the **Rate Sheets** card, click **Standard Rates**. The screen lists every Labour and every
Equipment and Materials line item under its collection and category, with the columns **Name**, **Unit** and
**Unit Cost**. It is a printable price list: nothing on it can be changed, and **Export to PDF** and
**Export to Excel** are the only two buttons.

The rates come from the line items themselves, so you change one by editing the item in
[Administration Settings](https://getjobbook.com/help/Administration_Settings#line-items), where the same items carry their accounting
codes and hourly costs as well. Fixed Price items are not on this screen.

## Video

Watch the video: [Job Book Setup #7: Creating Rate Sheets in Job Book](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0ovm_AiFK0)

## Related Guides

- Rate Sheets
- [Clients](https://getjobbook.com/help/Clients)
- [Job Setup](https://getjobbook.com/help/Job_Setup)
- [Administration Settings](https://getjobbook.com/help/Administration_Settings)