--- title: "Autotask work types: billing and contracts | BS Consulting" description: Design Autotask work types around the work technicians do, contract exclusions, after-hours rules and billing. 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[About Ben](https://benspector.uk/about) - [Book a discovery call](https://benspector.uk/contact/#book) # Autotask work types: how to design them for billing, contracts and profitability 6 Nov 2026 ![Picture of Ben Spector](https://app.hubspot.com/settings/avatar/7e455e13d1e7fbbeb836e1625311739c) [Ben Spector](https://benspector.uk/insights/author/ben-spector) ![Technician time records pass through contract inclusion and exclusion rules to an itemised invoice for review.](https://benspector.uk/hubfs/BS%20Consulting%20Website/Featured%20Images/bs-consulting-autotask-work-types-featured-1200x630-v01.jpg) **Autotask work types** should help a technician answer one straightforward question: *what work did I actually do?* They should not have to know the customer's package, hourly rate and exclusions before they can record a time entry. That distinction has become important in several MSP billing projects I've worked on. A work-type dropdown may look like a minor configuration decision, but it sits directly between technician behaviour, contract entitlement, labour rates and the invoice. A poorly designed list makes every one of those less reliable. My starting point is to make the choices easy for the person entering time, then let contracts and billing rules handle as much of the commercial treatment as possible. ## What does a work type control in Autotask? Autotask work types classify labour on tickets, tasks and time entries. They sit under [Billing Codes](https://ww2.autotask.net/help/Content/4_Admin/2FeaturesSettings/FinanceAccountingInvoicing/BillingCodes/WorkTypes.htm). A time entry's Work Type can influence its rate, its treatment under a contract, its after-hours behaviour and the way it appears in billing and reporting. Three parts of the configuration need to be considered together: - **Work Type and Role:** what activity was performed and which role rate or work-type modifier applies. - **Contract:** whether the customer's agreement absorbs that activity or excludes it to another contract. - **Billing review:** whether the resulting charge is commercially right, including any minimum, non-billable decision and invoice presentation. Autotask supports [reusable exclusion sets containing Work Types](https://ww2.autotask.net/help/Content/4_Admin/2FeaturesSettings/ContractsUnposting/ContractExclusionSets/Manage_Contract_Exclusion_Sets.htm). It also supports a fallback contract for excluded time. Without one, excluded work can end up without a contract. That is why work types should be designed alongside the service agreements, not after the contracts have been built. ## Start with what your MSP sells I usually begin with a matrix of the labour included in each service package. The package brochure is a useful starting point, but it often mixes labour entitlements with software products and service promises. Separate those first. For the labour, ask which activities are included, which are charged separately, and whether the minimum or rate differs. A simplified design might look like this: **Illustrative labour entitlement by agreement** ### Remote support - **Remote-support agreement:** Included - **Remote + on-site agreement:** Included - **True T&M:** Billable ### On-site support - **Remote-support agreement:** Excluded to T&M - **Remote + on-site agreement:** Included - **True T&M:** Billable ### Project implementation - **Remote-support agreement:** Excluded / project contract - **Remote + on-site agreement:** Excluded / project contract - **True T&M:** Billable or separately quoted ### Consulting and planning - **Remote-support agreement:** Excluded unless agreed - **Remote + on-site agreement:** Excluded unless agreed - **True T&M:** Billable ### Scheduled after-hours work - **Remote-support agreement:** Excluded unless agreed - **Remote + on-site agreement:** Excluded unless agreed - **True T&M:** Billable at agreed terms ### Emergency after-hours work - **Remote-support agreement:** Excluded - **Remote + on-site agreement:** Excluded - **True T&M:** Billable at emergency terms *Illustrative only. Your agreement wording, rates and contract rules determine the actual treatment.* The important change is that the technician uses the same description of the work regardless of the client. The contract determines whether that work is included. ## When does something deserve its own work type? I use three tests. A separate work type is normally justified if the distinction changes: - **Contract treatment:** one activity is included in a package and the other is excluded. - **Billing treatment:** a different rate, multiplier, minimum or other charge rule genuinely applies. - **Useful management reporting:** you need the distinction to understand capacity, delivery cost or the kind of work being performed. That last reason needs judgement. A report is only useful if technicians can make the distinction consistently. For example, **Project** and **Remote Support** may sometimes have the same hourly rate. I would still separate them if the difference helps the service manager understand how much delivery time is going into planned implementation rather than reactive support. An engineer deploying a new Microsoft 365 environment is doing project work even if they never leave their desk. At the same time, I would be wary of adding a separate work type for every application, every service-package name or every client-specific rate. That usually turns a simple technician choice into a commercial lookup exercise. ## Make the choice follow the work, not the customer's contract Imagine a technician has spent two hours at a customer site fixing workstations, followed by an hour discussing the customer's technology plan with a director. Recording all three hours as *On-site Support* may describe where the engineer was. It loses the distinction between support work and consulting. I would want two clear entries: - **On-site Support:** two hours of workstation troubleshooting. - **Consulting:** one hour of technology planning. The customer's agreement then decides whether each category is absorbed or chargeable. You get clearer contract behaviour and better management information without requiring the technician to interpret the agreement. But don't overdo the split. On one recent MSP design we retained separate after-hours project and support choices even where their pricing was functionally similar. The aim was to mirror the daytime choices so technicians would not have to learn a different classification after hours. A technically shorter list is not always the easier one to use. ## Roles, departments and work types are different decisions Another recurring problem is using Autotask Roles and Departments to describe differences that belong in Work Types. For a small MSP where everyone does a mix of remote and on-site work at the same base rate, separate Help Desk and Engineer roles can create unnecessary administration. Staff may need several combinations of roles and departments simply to record their normal day. In that situation, a single practical labour role with well-defined Work Types may be easier to maintain. Before combining Roles, check whether the existing distinction is still needed for resourcing, reporting or contract rules. Identical rates alone are not a reason to merge them. There are valid reasons to keep several Roles: different labour rates for senior specialists, distinct commercial rate cards, or contract exclusions based on role. Autotask supports contract-specific rates against Roles and work-type modifiers based on role rates or custom amounts. My rule is to introduce a layer only when it changes how the business works, bills, secures access or reports. Don't preserve old organisational labels simply because they already exist in Autotask. ## After-hours billing is where a small design mistake gets expensive Scheduled work outside office hours and a genuine emergency call-out are commercially different activities. They may both happen at 7pm, but they should not automatically carry the same minimum charge. In one Autotask billing review, ordinary support time recorded after the end of the working day was being pushed into an emergency Work Type with a large minimum. That produced inflated draft charges for work that had been arranged in advance. The better rule was to send ordinary out-of-hours support to **Scheduled After-hours Support**, while requiring the technician to select **Emergency After-hours Support** explicitly for a genuine emergency. We corrected the affected entries and changed the default mapping. The correction addressed the charges under review; it was not evidence of the wider billing process running reliably. Before adopting automatic after-hours assignment, decide what you are trying to automate. [Automatic after-hours splitting](https://ww2.autotask.net/help/Content/2_Getting_Started/Timesheets/After-Hours-Split-Time.htm) needs a start/stop time entry, a configured after-hours Work Type and work outside the applicable business hours. Decimal-duration entries do not trigger it. The clock cannot tell you whether the work was an emergency or was scheduled to avoid disruption. ## Minimum billable time and rounding need separate testing Don't conflate the time somebody worked with the time the customer is charged. A work type might have a minimum billable amount. System-level rounding can also affect a time entry when the relevant setting is enabled. After-hours splitting can also change the result: minimums, maximums and rounding apply to each resulting entry. Test entries that cross the business-hours boundary as well as those wholly inside or outside it. For each Work Type, document: - when the technician should select it; - the base rate or role/modifier behaviour; - any minimum or agreed billing increment; - whether the client's contract includes it; - what happens outside normal hours; and - how it should appear on the invoice. Then enter a short example, a long example and an after-hours example. Inspect the resulting billable quantities in Approve & Post, not merely the Work Type configuration screen. ## Communication and non-billable work need deliberate rules ### Communication A short call to arrange access, chase a reply or leave a voicemail takes time. It is easy for that work to disappear from the timesheet. A dedicated *Communication* Work Type can make it visible, but it must have a tight definition. I often distinguish it with one question: **was technical work actually performed?** Leaving a voicemail is communication. Explaining how to fix an Excel issue is remote support, even if the explanation took only a few minutes. One MSP design used a short, fixed maximum billable unit for this category. That is a policy choice, not something every MSP should copy. A 45-minute troubleshooting call mislabelled as Communication could otherwise be badly under-billed. ### Non-billable correction versus goodwill It can also be useful to separate work you are not charging for because your own team made an error from work you are choosing to waive as a goodwill gesture. Those reasons tell management different things. The first may indicate rework. The second may be a deliberate account-management decision. Some MSPs will want a no-charge goodwill item visible on the invoice; others will not. Define which treatment applies, then test the *Non-billable* and *Show on Invoice* settings alongside the relevant charge rules rather than assuming a work-type name alone will produce the intended result. ## Make exclusions and fallback contracts part of the design Once the Work Types are agreed, translate the package matrix into contract exclusion rules. The purpose is predictable routing, not a complicated contract hierarchy for its own sake. For example, when a technician selects *On-site Support*: 1. The time entry is associated with the intended managed-service contract, through a valid default or an explicit selection. 2. Autotask checks the selected contract's exclusions. If on-site work is included, the labour follows that contract's treatment. 3. If on-site work is excluded, the configured exclusion contract can receive the time. Without an exclusion contract, the entry can be saved off contract. 4. The billing reviewer checks whether the resulting charge is appropriate before posting. That is why I commonly give managed-service clients a controlled T&M fallback. For the detailed contract model, see my guide to [Autotask contract exclusions and billable fallback paths](https://benspector.uk/insights/how-to-structure-autotask-contracts-so-billable-work-never-falls-off-contract). Do not assume the contract selection is correct simply because the technician chose the right Work Type. Validate ticket defaults, exclusion sets, contract dates, after-hours rules and any integration-created time entries as one connected test. ## Test it against real working scenarios before rollout Before changing every technician's dropdown, I would test a small set of representative cases: | Scenario | What I would check | | --- | --- | | Remote support for a managed client | Correct Work Type; time absorbed by the intended agreement | | On-site visit outside a remote-only agreement | Exclusion routes to the deliberate billable contract | | Planned evening change | Scheduled, not emergency, treatment and correct minimum | | Genuine emergency call-out | Explicit emergency Work Type and agreed rate/minimum | | Project work done remotely | Project classification, not generic remote support | | Quick phone chase with no technical work | Communication policy and invoice appearance | | Correction of an internal mistake | Non-billable treatment and useful internal reporting | | Time created through an integration | Work Type, contract, after-hours and rounding behave as expected | Review the time entry, contract, Approve & Post result and a representative draft invoice. If the invoice goes into QuickBooks or Xero, check that route too. A configuration that looks right on the Work Type screen can still produce the wrong customer charge. ## Don't judge the redesign only by whether invoices are correct The first few weeks are about technician behaviour as much as configuration. Look for repeated selections of a vague default, project work hidden inside support, inconsistent use of Communication, and entries reclassified by billing staff. Ask technicians which choices were difficult and why. It is also worth checking whether your role structure or default time-entry settings are making the right choice harder than necessary. If a Work Type exists but only a subset of staff can use it, people will invent workarounds. I would much rather have a small list that a service desk uses consistently than an exhaustive catalogue that produces attractive but unreliable reporting. ## The outcome I'm aiming for A technician chooses a clear description of the work. Autotask applies the appropriate role, rates and contract rules. Finance reviews genuine exceptions rather than reconstructing the commercial terms from every ticket. That gives you a better starting point for billing accuracy, labour-cost visibility and profitability reporting. It also reduces the number of rules people have to carry around in their heads. If your Work Types have grown around years of package exceptions, my [Autotask consulting](https://benspector.uk/tactical-support-for-msps/autotask-consulting) work covers the practical redesign of work types, roles, exclusions, contracts and billing controls. If you want help untangling those rules, [book a 30-minute discovery call](https://benspector.uk/contact#book) to discuss your Autotask setup. Related reading: [Autotask service bundles and reconciliation](https://benspector.uk/insights/the-challenge-of-bundling-services-and-accurate-reconciliation-in-psa-systems-for-msps) and [fixing MSP billing and profitability](https://benspector.uk/insights/fixing-msp-billing-and-profitability-in-autotask-a-12-month-roadmap). ### Share: [Share on Facebook](http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=https://benspector.uk/insights/autotask-work-types-billing-contracts-profitability&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook) [Share on LinkedIn](http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://benspector.uk/insights/autotask-work-types-billing-contracts-profitability&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin) [Share on X](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?original_referer=https://benspector.uk/insights/autotask-work-types-billing-contracts-profitability&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&url=https://benspector.uk/insights/autotask-work-types-billing-contracts-profitability&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&source=tweetbutton&text=Autotask%20work%20types:%20how%20to%20design%20them%20for%20billing,%20contracts%20and%20profitability) [Autotask](https://benspector.uk/insights/tag/autotask), [MSP revenue operations](https://benspector.uk/insights/tag/msp-revenue-operations) ## Related posts Search [Autotask service bundles: how to balance simple pricing, reconciliation and profitability](https://benspector.uk/insights/the-challenge-of-bundling-services-and-accurate-reconciliation-in-psa-systems-for-msps) ![BS Consulting Logo](https://benspector.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/Website%20Files/Logo/BS%20Consulting%20Logo%20-%20White%20(Transparent%20Background)%20-%20Cropped.png?width=160&name=BS%20Consulting%20Logo%20-%20White%20(Transparent%20Background)%20-%20Cropped.png "BS Consulting Logo") MSP revenue operations and HubSpot consulting that connects sales, quoting, service delivery and billing. - [Services](https://benspector.uk/tactical-support-for-msps) - [How I work](https://benspector.uk/tactical-support-packages) - [About Ben](https://benspector.uk/about) - [Book a discovery call](https://benspector.uk/contact/#book) - [Privacy policy](https://benspector.uk/privacy-policy) - [Terms and Conditions](https://benspector.uk/terms) [Connect on LinkedIn](https://linkedin.com/in/benspector1) © BS Consult Ltd (registered in England and Wales 12932128)