New: Track project profitability using cost & bill rates

One of the most requested features in Float is now live: you can now track the profitability of your project resourcing as the work is happening (not just after the project is over).

No more “yikes” moments when you realize a project ran over, and it’s too late to do anything about it. Now, you’ll know how your margins are trending based on both scheduled and logged hours—so you can course-correct in real time.

💡 Pro tip: if you use Float’s time tracking, you can use the toggle in the Single Project Report to switch between Scheduled, Logged, and Past Scheduled + Future Logged hours. You’ll get a live look at how your margins shift based on estimated vs. actual time worked—so you’re not just guessing how things will turn out.

How it works

With the addition of a new cost rate field alongside bill rates, you can now track project margins in Float. You'll be able to distinguish between what someone costs the business and what you bill the client for their time.

• Cost rates: this is a new rates field to track the person’s hourly costs to the business. Some customers represent this as a person’s salary (as an hourly rate) or a blended rate.
• Bill rates: the rates field replacing hourly rates that should be used for your charge-out rates or the amount you typically bill a client for that resource’s time.

For example, let’s say you employ a Project Manager at $70 per hour but charge clients $140 per hour for their work. In this example, $70 per hour would be your cost rate and $140 per hour would be your bill rate.

Profitability is available now—here’s how to start using it:

1. Set cost and bill rates for your team. You can do this by role in Team Settings or by person in bulk with the People import CSV.
2. Add budgets to your projects. Fixed, fee-based budgets are the most popular choice, but you can also track margins from the hourly-fee budget type. Hours-based budgets don’t currently show a margin... yet! We're looking into it 😉
3. Open your Single Project Report to view project margins. Right now, you can only report on margins one project at a time—but roll-ups to other areas of Reports are coming soon.

🔒 Note: By default, only Admins and Account Owners can view profitability. If you want to give certain Managers access, head to that person’s profile to adjust their access rights.

Join us to learn more—how to protect your profitability in Float

Join us for a product-focused workshop with our Product Lead, Alice Winthrop, and Knowledge Manager, Justyna Kawalec. They’ll walk you through the ins and outs of setting cost and bill rates, using project budgets, and tracking profitability like a pro.

• When: April 29 at 1pm PDT (or anytime really because we’ll send the recording)
• Where: online—we'll email you the link to join

Bonus: you’ll get the inside story of how and why we built this feature the way we did.

Register today

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