Change Billing Rates Retroactively

Rate changes happen: a new year, a new title, a renegotiated engagement. In Outlaw Practice a rate change is never silently retroactive. Every time entry carries its own rate, captured when the entry is saved, so changing a rate today does not quietly rewrite yesterday’s work. When you genuinely want past time re-rated, the user’s rate card gives you a controlled way to do it: you pick the date it reaches back to, you choose which clients, cases, or case types it touches, and time that has already been invoiced is never changed.

Where a Rate Can Come From

When a time entry is saved, Outlaw resolves its hourly rate from three levels, most specific first:

1. The entry itself. A rate changed directly on a time entry is an override, and it wins over everything else.
2. The case. Each case’s Hourly Rates section prices every timekeeper for that case; see Fee Arrangements.
3. The firm default. Each user carries a default billable rate on the Users page in Settings.

The Three Ways to Apply a New Rate

Changing someone’s default rate is a guided decision because the rate touches billing history. On the Users page (administrators only; see Roles & Permissions), open the person’s card and find Billable Rate, which shows their current rate. As soon as you enter a different New Rate, Outlaw asks How Should the New Rate Be Applied?

• All New Time: the new rate is used for all new time on existing and new cases. Time already entered keeps its old rate.
• Only New Cases: existing cases keep the old rate, including for new time entries on them. Only cases opened after the change use the new rate.
• Apply Retroactively: the new rate also reaches backward, re-rating unbilled time from a date you choose, for the clients, cases, or case types you choose.

Apply a Rate Retroactively

1. Open Settings and choose Users.
2. Open the person whose rate is changing and find Billable Rate.
3. Enter the New Rate.
4. Choose Apply Retroactively.
5. Set the Beginning On date. Time entries completed on or after this date are re-rated; entries completed before it keep their old rate.
6. Scope the change if you need to. A switch chooses between two modes: Exclude skips any case matching any of your criteria, while Only limits the change to cases matching all of them. Either way you can pick Clients, Cases, and Case Types; the pickers list open cases.
7. Press Apply Rate.

What Gets Re-Rated

When you confirm, Outlaw updates two things:

• The person’s unbilled time entries: entries assigned to them (or created by them and never assigned to anyone else), tied to a client, completed on or after the Beginning On date (or still open), on cases billed hourly or on contingency that are open, pending, or on hold.
• The person’s rate on each of those cases: their row in the case’s Hourly Rates section is set to the new rate, so future time on the case follows the same rate.

What Is Never Re-Rated

A retroactive change also leaves alone:

• Entries with an overridden rate. A rate set by hand on an individual time entry stays exactly as you set it.
• Entries completed before the Beginning On date.
• Flat-fee cases. The flat fee is the price; time on those cases doesn’t bill by rate.
• Closed and withdrawn cases.

One thing deserves care: on the open cases it does touch, a retroactive change sets the person’s case rate to the new default, including on cases where you had negotiated a special rate for them. If a case must keep its negotiated rate, exclude that case (or its client or case type) in step 6 before you apply.

Re-Rate One Case or One Entry

• One case: run Apply Retroactively with the Only filter pointed at that single case. Changing the rate in the case’s Hourly Rates section instead affects new time only; it never re-rates existing entries.
• One entry: open the time entry and change its rate directly. That override sticks, and later bulk rate changes will skip it.
• Invoiced time: rate tools never alter an invoice. If a billed amount needs correcting, handle it on the invoice itself; see Creating and Sending Invoices.