Set what a project costs so the price can merge into the letter.
The use of projects is optional. If your practice management system does not use them, or your firm does not, this does not apply — engagement letters work without them. Please note, in order to charge a project price or prepayment, a project is required.
Add the project first
- Open the draft engagement and complete the engagement details.
- Select Add projects.
- Select one or more projects.
The projects offered are those of the primary client, of other clients in the primary client's client group, of other clients you added to the letter, and of clients in the same client group as any client you added.
Available projects must be related to the engagement’s clients or their client groups, not already linked to an engagement, and have a created date no earlier than two years before the engagement’s fiscal year.
Set the price
- On the Scope of services tab, select a project. The right-hand panel updates.
- Under Pricing structure, select Edit.
- Choose the pricing structure:
- Fixed fee — a single price for the whole project.
- Hourly — a minimum and maximum price for the whole project.
- Enter the price or price range.
- Set the billing schedule if you use one.
- Save.
- Repeat for each project.
You return to the scope of services list. Drag the columns to bring the values you want into view.
Get the price into the letter
Project name, project description, price or price range, and prepayment amount are all placeholder variables. Add them to the letter section where your scope of services appears.
Select Engagement letter to preview the result, and Edit letter to adjust it if needed, though it is recommended to have these placeholder in the template itself instead of adding to letters one at a time.
Prices can change which paragraphs appear
On a dynamic letter template the price is not only merged into the letter; it is also data that variants can test.
A common pattern is a fee block with two variants: when a project on the letter has a price greater than zero, the block shows a fee table with one row per client and project, built from a repeating section; when no price is set, it shows a plain list of the returns or services with no amounts. Expect the letter to change shape when you save a price, and review the Engagement letter tab after pricing, with Highlight dynamic content on, rather than before.
The same applies to prepayments. A prepayment amount can be merged as a placeholder and can also drive a variant, so a letter can carry a prepayment paragraph only when one is set.
If the fee wording does not change after you save a price, the block's expression is testing something the project does not have. That is a template question for your engagement admin, not something to fix by editing the letter.
Related
- Require a prepayment on a project
- Engagement placeholder variables
- Edit an unlocked section of a letter