Labor cost in Toggl Focus
Labor cost helps you understand what work costs your business and how that affects project profitability. In Toggl Focus, labor cost is tied to a member’s contribution, so it can be set at workspace member and project member level.
How labor cost differs from billable rates
Billable rates and labor cost are configured differently in Toggl Focus:
- Billable rates exist on four levels: workspace, workspace member, project, and project member.
- Labor cost exists on two levels only: workspace member and project member.
This is because labor cost is tied directly to the cost of a member’s work.
Set up labor cost at workspace level
To add labor cost for a workspace member:
- Open the Members page.
- Select a user.
- Add or update the user’s labor cost.
The user view stores both current and historical values, including scheduled changes.
Set up labor cost at project level
To add labor cost for a project member:
- Open the project’s Project members (Open a project, navigate to Members tab) page.
- Select the relevant member.
- Add or update their labor cost.
Schedule future labor cost changes
You can schedule labor cost updates for a future date. This is useful when you already know a salary change is coming and want the new cost to apply automatically from that date onward.
Where labor cost appears
Project Dashboard
Labor cost appears in the Project Dashboard.
Behavior depends on project setup:
- Budget progress is shown by default.
- Time progress is available as a secondary view.
- If a fixed fee is set, cost is tracked against that fixed fee. This is different from Track where only Billable Rate is tracked against that type of budget.
- If no fixed fee is set, Toggl Focus compares billable rates and cost to calculate margin.
- The dashboard also projects future cost, future revenue, and potential margin.
Summary reports
Labor cost also appears in Summary reports, with fixed fee shown next to it for easier comparison.