In Clio, you can create User Default Rates, Matter Rates, Client Rates, and Custom Rates. These rates have a hierarchy so that if there is a situation where there are conflicting rates, then one rate will override all others.
This is the order of the hierarchy:
Custom Rates (Highest—will take precedence over other rates)
Flat Activity Category Rate
Matter Based Rate
Client Based Rate
Custom Hourly Activity Category Rate
User Default Rate (Lowest—will be used by default, but can be overridden by any custom Matter, Client, Co-Council, or Activity rate)
For a description of each rate type in the hierarchy, click here.
Please note: changing the matter or activity category on the time entry after adding a custom rate will override that custom rate, unless the rate is a flat rate.
Consider the following example that illustrates the effect of Matter and default rates on time entries.
In the following time entry, the user has a Default Rate of $325/hr and Matter or client-based rate has not been specified.
If the user adds a Matter to the time entry (which, in this case, has a Matter Based Rate of $350/hr) the Rate field automatically updates to reflect that Matter rate.
At any time the user can override a user, Matter, client, or activity rate with a custom rate by typing an amount directly into the "Rate" field.
What happens in the case of conflicting Rates for a User?
In this example, user 'Don Draper' is a member of two Groups in his Clio account, the Employment Group and the Litigation Group. Then, we go to the Matter and set a Matter (or Client) specific rate for each of the Groups. The Employment Group is $250/hr and the Litigation Group is $350/hr.
When we go to enter in time for Don, the rate that shows in the rate box is $350/hr. The reason for this is that Clio will always choose the highest applicable rate when there are equal/conflicting rates: