Set item(s) as Non-Billable

[TriadNetSys2013]

Hi techies,
I am pretty new to CommitCRM, but I am coming with experience using another ticketing IT software.
I was wondering if there is a way to set an item as a non-billable so it does not subtract time from our clients contracts.
Here is the example:
Most of our clients sign a yearly regular maintenance agreement with us to use X number of hours/month. So each month contract hours will reset and so far the CommitCRM has been great providing this.
But here is our problem, when the call comes in our dispatcher ( non-technical person), will create a ticket with account info and assign it to a tech. Since each account has a contract tied to, when work is done, the hours are automatically subtracted from that contract.
Now, from time to time, clients will call for a quick question or something similar. The dispatcher does not know that, he just creates a ticket and assigns it to a tech.
If a tech spends 1 minutes on the phone with a customer, we usually don't bill customers for that, but we defiantly want to keep track of those happenings.
The question is: Is it possible to configure "Not-Billable" item so the time does not get subtracted from their contract. I know they can change the contract and do it that way, but I don't feel like thats the right way of doing it.
First of all, I don't think tech should be going in and messing with the contracts and second, when we run monthly report for the contract and send it to a customer, its always nice to see we gave them some free "support".

Any help will be appreciated.

[Support Team]

Re: Set item(s) as Non-Billable

Thank for posting this interesting and detailed question.

When working with Block of Time Contracts each hourly Charge is subtracted from the Contract block and these Charges are already set as Not-Billable, assuming that the client pays fix price monthly.
As you wrote - one of the option is to select another Contract for these short one-minute calls.

You may know this already, however, a Labor Item can be set with Price source 'by Hours' or 'by Units'. Unit-based Labor Charges do NOT affect on the Block of Hours and yet are added as Not-Billable (so they will not be summarized in the Charges Totals).
I can suggest you to create a Labor Item by Units, call it something like 'Short service call' and technicians can use it for the quick calls.

One note: these Charges will not affect Employee hours reports (such as Monthly and Annual Hours Summary by Employee reports), as they are unit-based and not hourly-based. However, as these are used for very short time entries anyway (as you mentioned 1 minute or so) it won't have that a big affect on the report.

Hope it helps.

[TriadNetSys2013]

Re: Set item(s) as Non-Billable

Thank you for the quick reply and for providing some clarification. I guess settings items by units instead of hours will work.
But you mentioned it does not show on the employees charges reports. It would be nice it would show on there as well.
Here is why: From time to time we all come across a problem that we are not show how to fix. We might spend hours working on this issue and there are times where you just can't bill customer for some of those hours, so you have to make some of them non-billable. It really would be nice to be able to print a report at the end of the month to show employees billable hours with this included.
For instance we someone that does not see our employees daily calender, only reports, they might assume someone is sitting around office doing nothing.

Just might thought. hah

[Support Team]

Re: Set item(s) as Non-Billable

These Charges are included in reports :-)

What we wanted to say is that these unit based labor Charges are not included when displaying the total Charge Hours Amount field, simply because they are unit based, not time based.

Hope the above makes it clearer and thanks for your feedback.