Fix data health issues and set cost allocations
Work through the Data health panel, set employer cost for salaried people, backfill $0 rates, and split idle salary across departments.
Profitability never errors when an input is missing; it substitutes a wrong number. The Data health panel turns each gap into a ranked item with a one-line consequence and a link to the surface that fixes it. This article works through them.
Steps
- Go to Reports & insights, then Profitability, and open Data health.
- Take danger items first. Each shows the client and project, the money at stake, and an action such as Set fee or Set amount.
- Projects without a contract: open the client and add a retainer period for the project. See Set up retainer periods.
- Lapsed retainers: the last period ended and nothing replaced it. Close and start the next period.
- Media projects without a fee: open the project and set the campaign management fee.
- Salaried people without employer cost: go to Team, open the person, and set a monthly employer cost. Until then they are costed at hours times rate and their idle capacity is invisible.
- Entries with a $0 rate: click Backfill rates on the group. Every $0 billable entry for those people is repriced from their rate cards.
- Return to the page. Items disappear as inputs land.
Set cost allocations
- Go to Settings, then Cost allocations.
- For each salaried person, click Create split. Verbial proposes a split from their trailing three months of logged hours by department.
- Adjust percentages to total 100 and set the effective date. The first split should start at the person's earliest logged work.
- Save. Idle salary is charged to those departments from that date; earlier dates stay unallocated and are reported as such.
What to check
- Info items are not misconfiguration: hourly and flat projects shown at delivered value, or internal time. They are listed so a reader knows what the number is.
- Employer cost is visible only to admins and lives on the Team page behind the cost capability.
- Rate cards resolve per project, per user, per tier, then agency default under Settings, then Rate cards.
Questions
What does a danger item mean?
The gap fabricates a number: a $0 contract, a media campaign with no fee, or a lapsed retainer silently reverting to hours times rate. Fix these first.
What does a warn item mean?
The number is indicative rather than real: no contract on a project, an unconfigured salaried cost, or entries with a $0 rate snapshot.
Why split idle salary at all?
Without a split, a person's unabsorbed salary is reported as unallocated idle rather than charged to the departments that own their capacity. The split makes department P&L honest.