For agencies💵 Billing & Payouts

Bill a flat fee instead of by the hour

Set up whole-job dollar amounts, an on-call fee or a tech fee, that either replace the hourly charge or get added on top.

Almost everything OneTerp bills is quantity times rate: hours times an hourly rate, miles times a mileage rate. A flat charge is the exception, a single dollar amount for the whole job that does not move with how long the job runs. Two cases drive it: an on-call fee of a set amount for the shift whatever the hours turn out to be, and an extra fee like video or editing work billed on top of the normal charge.

Watch the walkthrough

0:40

An on-call fee, a tech fee, any set amount for a whole job. · Open in a new tab

Step by step

  1. 1Open Settings, Billing & Subscription, then Rate Differentials. Flat charges sit just below the per-hour differentials, because both answer the same question: what changes this job's price?
  2. 2Add a charge and give it the name that should print on the invoice, for example "On-call fee" or "Tech fee".
  3. 3Enter the whole-job dollar amount. This is not per hour.
  4. 4Pick how it bills: "Instead of the hourly charge" replaces the job's hourly service charge (the on-call case), or "On top of the hourly charge" adds it to everything else (the tech-fee case).
  5. 5Choose what makes it fire. The usual way is a tag: pick one or more tags, and any job carrying one of them gets the charge. You can instead have it apply automatically to every job in scope, or leave it manual and attach it to one-off jobs by hand.
  6. 6Under "What it pays the interpreter", leave the hours blank if pay should be untouched. Enter a number and whoever covers the job is paid that many hours instead, however long the shift actually runs, which is what you want for an on-call shift where the hours are availability rather than work.
  7. 7Set the hours separately for contract (1099) interpreters and for W-2 staff, because each is paid from a different place.
  8. 8Choose the "Rate for those hours". The default, "Whatever runs when the shift ends", works the same for both: each person gets their own rate plus every differential running when the shift ends, combined the way your stacking setting says. A Sunday shift ending at 10:30 PM earns Night and Weekend together if you stack them. Contractors use your Rate Differentials, W-2 staff use your Staff Pay Rules premiums.
  9. 9Or choose "Rates I pick by name" to pay the rates you tick whatever time the shift runs: Rate Differentials for contractors, Staff Pay Rules premiums for W-2 staff. Tick them separately for weekdays and for weekends (a shift that starts on a Saturday or Sunday), for example Night on weekdays and Night plus Weekend on weekends, so on-call always pays the night rate. Several ticks combine the way your stacking setting says. Leave weekends empty to pay the same as weekdays.
  10. 10Or choose "A set amount" to pay contract (1099) interpreters a dollar figure for the shift, for example $50 for on call, however long it runs and whatever their rate. Travel and mileage still pay on top. W-2 staff are still paid in hours, at the rate running when the shift ends, because payroll needs hours to work out overtime.
  11. 11Optionally narrow it to a single customer or billing group, so it only ever fires for their jobs. Leave both unset for a charge that is about the work rather than the client.
  12. 12Use the "Check billing" preview on the booking form or dispatch card to confirm a job charges what you expect before it runs.

Tips

  • 🔴 The dollar amount is customer-side only. It never becomes anyone's pay. An on-call shift billed flat at $86 still pays the interpreter for their hours (or the set hours or set amount below), and that is deliberate. What you bill and what you pay are set separately and are not meant to match.
  • The paid hours (or a contractor's set amount) are the one place a flat charge touches pay. Hours work whatever each person earns; a set amount pays every contractor the same figure. Travel is still paid, and if the person does get called out, close that call-out as its own job: it is paid in full at their normal rate, on top of the on-call pay.
  • On the audit, a set-amount line shows its hours and the dollar figure but no $/hr, because the amount is for the shift, not per hour.
  • A set amount outranks hours: if one job carries two flat charges, one paying hours and one paying a set amount, the set amount is what the contractor is paid. Between two set amounts, the larger one wins. A late cancellation, a no-show length or a pay exception at billing review still wins over either.
  • With the shift-end rate, what counts is the shift's last minute: a shift ending at exactly 10:00 PM is not a night shift if Night starts at 10:00. For a contractor the differential needs an interpreter amount for the job's language, or it adds nothing.
  • Rates picked by name apply whatever time the shift runs, and they are the only ones on those hours, so nothing is paid twice. Whether a shift counts as a weekend goes by its scheduled start in the job's time zone.
  • If the weekend choice is later switched off or removed, weekend shifts pay the weekday choice, and the charge's badge says so.
  • A contractor is paid the hours or set amount once per job. If the same interpreter covers two pieces of a split on-call shift they are paid once; two different interpreters splitting it are each paid.
  • For W-2 staff, time on the clock is always paid as worked. The on-call hours are paid on top when more than 15 minutes of the on-call window falls outside their clocked time. For example, an 8:00–4:00 shift followed by a 3:30–10:30 on-call window pays the 8 hours plus the on-call hours, not 14 hours. An on-call window that sits inside the work day (give or take 15 minutes) is part of the day and adds nothing.
  • You can set an amount to bill, what to pay (hours or a set amount), or both. A charge needs at least one.
  • A charge with no customer, no billing group, and no tag cannot be set to apply automatically. With nothing to limit it, it would quietly land on every job you bill, so OneTerp refuses it. Give it a tag or a scope first.
  • Tag triggers work with your agency's own custom tags, not just the shared catalog, so you can make a tag purely for pricing.
  • Deactivating a charge stops it everywhere immediately, including on jobs where someone attached it by hand. That is how you retire a fee without deleting the history.
  • A tag that a flat charge depends on cannot be deleted while the charge still points at it.

Related articles

Still need help?

If this article didn't solve it, submit a ticket and the OneTerp team will follow up.

Contact support
← Back to Help Center