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Discounts and Percentage Charges ​

Add percentage-based discounts or surcharges to bills, applying them to the entire invoice or specific line items.

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Learn how to create and apply percentage-based discounts and charges to bills.

Overview ​

Discounts and charges in Hidma let you adjust bill amounts beyond just time-based line items. Whether you're offering a 10% discount to a loyal client, adding a rush fee surcharge, applying an early payment discount, or including percentage-based adjustments for any reason, Hidma handles these modifications cleanly while maintaining transparency about what clients are being charged and why.

Percentage-based adjustments are particularly powerful because they automatically scale with the underlying amounts. A 5% discount applies correctly whether the bill is $1,000 or $100,000. The discount amount updates automatically if you add or remove work from the bill. And you can apply the adjustment to the entire bill or selectively to specific line items, giving you precise control over pricing while maintaining mathematical accuracy.

Types of Adjustments ​

Discounts ​

Discounts reduce the amount clients pay, appearing as negative amounts on the invoice. Common discount scenarios include volume discounts for large engagements or long-term clients, early payment discounts encouraging prompt payment, goodwill discounts when acknowledging service issues or delays, loyalty discounts for valued long-term relationships, and promotional discounts for new clients or special circumstances.

When you add a discount to a bill, it appears as a separate line item with a negative amount, making it completely transparent to the client what they're saving and why. This transparency builds trust and makes discounts feel like real value rather than hidden in adjusted hourly rates.

Charges (Surcharges) ​

Charges add amounts to bills, appearing as positive additions beyond the base work performed. Common charge scenarios include rush fees for accelerated delivery timelines, after-hours premiums for work performed outside normal business hours, complexity surcharges for unusually difficult or specialized work, risk premiums for high-stakes or high-risk engagements, and administrative fees for overhead or processing costs.

Like discounts, charges appear as explicit line items rather than being buried in rates. This transparency helps clients understand exactly what they're paying for and why certain work costs more than standard pricing.

Creating Discounts and Charges ​

Setting Up Reusable Items ​

Before you can add discounts or charges to bills, you need to create them as reusable items in your system. Navigate to Settings → Billing → Charges and Discounts (or the equivalent location in your instance), and click "Add New" to create a new item.

Name the Item clearly so it's easy to find when creating bills - "5% Volume Discount," "Rush Fee 25%," "Early Payment Discount 3%." The name appears on the invoice, so make it client-friendly and professional.

Choose Currency or Percentage by clicking the currency symbol next to the amount field. Select "Percentage" for percentage-based adjustments (the focus of this guide), or stick with currency for fixed-dollar amounts.

Enter the Percentage - perhaps 5% for a standard discount, 10% for a larger discount, or 25% for a rush fee. The percentage you enter here becomes the default when you add this item to bills, though you can adjust it on individual bills if needed.

Designate as Discount or Charge by selecting the appropriate type. Discounts reduce the bill total and appear as negative amounts. Charges increase the bill total and appear as positive amounts. This classification affects both the math and how the item appears on invoices.

Save the Item and it immediately becomes available when creating bills. Create multiple discount and charge templates for different scenarios you encounter regularly - 5%, 10%, and 15% discounts, plus 15%, 25%, and 50% rush fees, for example.

Adding to Bills ​

When creating a bill, after you've added your time-based line items, you can apply discounts or charges. Click "Add Charge" or "Add Discount" (depending on interface) and select from your pre-configured items.

Important: You cannot add percentage-based discounts or charges to an empty bill - there needs to be at least one line item for the percentage to calculate against. This makes sense mathematically (5% of zero is zero) and ensures the adjustment has a meaningful base amount.

Once you select a percentage discount or charge, Hidma offers you flexibility in how it applies:

Apply to Entire Bill - The adjustment calculates based on the sum of all line items currently on the bill. If you add a 5% discount and your line items total $10,000, the discount will be $500, bringing the final total to $9,500. As you add or remove line items, the discount amount recalculates automatically, always remaining 5% of the current total.

Apply to Specific Line Items - Check the boxes next to specific line items you want the adjustment to affect. The adjustment calculates based only on those selected items' amounts. If you select three line items totaling $4,000 and apply a 10% discount, the discount calculates as $400 against just those three items, leaving other line items unaffected.

This selective application is powerful when different parts of the bill deserve different treatment - perhaps you discount consultation hours but not out-of-pocket expenses, or you apply a rush fee only to work performed under tight deadlines, not routine tasks.

Linking and Grouping ​

When you apply a percentage adjustment to specific line items, Hidma visually links them together on the bill, showing that they're related. This grouping makes it clear to anyone reviewing the bill which work the adjustment applies to, preventing confusion about how the math works.

The linked items and their associated adjustment appear together, making the bill structure immediately clear. Clients can see exactly which portions of the work received discounts or surcharges, providing transparency that builds trust.

Bill Sorting ​

Beyond just adding adjustments, Hidma provides flexible sorting to organize how line items appear on bills. Click the "Sort" button to access sorting options:

Chronological (Default) - Sorts all items based on when the work was actually performed, as captured in timesheet entries. This creates a timeline narrative of the work, showing what happened first, second, third. Chronological sorting helps clients understand the progression of the engagement.

By Job Type - Groups all similar work together: all research time together, all client meetings together, all document preparation together. This organization helps clients understand how much effort went into different types of activities.

By Team Member - Groups work by who performed it, making it easy to see each person's contribution to the project. This can be particularly useful when clients want visibility into team composition and effort distribution.

By Project - When bills include work from multiple projects, sorting by project groups related work together, providing clear separation between different engagements or matters.

Manual Reordering - For custom organization, you can manually reorder line items by clicking row numbers and typing the new position, or using up/down arrows that appear when hovering over rows. This flexibility lets you organize bills however makes most sense for your specific situation.

Note: Line items containing fixed charges (not time-based) always appear at the bottom of the bill regardless of sorting method. This ensures that hourly work remains grouped together while supplementary charges appear separately at the end.

Common Scenarios ​

Scenario: Volume Discount ​

Situation: Long-term client with a large engagement deserves a 10% discount on all work.

Solution: Create a bill with all time-based line items. Click "Add Discount" and select your pre-configured "10% Volume Discount" item. Choose "Apply to Entire Bill." The discount calculates as 10% of the total time-based charges, appearing as a negative line item at the bottom. The final bill shows full charges for transparency, then clearly shows the 10% discount being applied, making the client's savings explicit.

Scenario: Rush Fee on Urgent Work ​

Situation: Client needed urgent delivery on part of the project, and you agreed to a 25% rush fee for that urgent work only.

Solution: Create the bill with all line items. Identify which line items represent the urgent work (perhaps 40 hours over three days). Add your "25% Rush Fee" charge. Instead of applying to the entire bill, select only those line items representing the urgent work. The rush fee calculates as 25% of just those items, leaving the routine work at standard pricing while appropriately charging the premium for urgency.

Scenario: Early Payment Incentive ​

Situation: Offering clients a 3% discount if they pay within 10 days.

Solution: Create the bill normally with all work. Add your "3% Early Payment Discount" item, applying it to the entire bill. In the bill description or terms, note "3% discount applied - payment due within 10 days to receive this rate." Clients see the discounted amount as the total due and understand the incentive for prompt payment.

Best Practices ​

Discount and Charge Tips

Be Transparent About Adjustments Always make percentage discounts and charges visible on the invoice rather than hiding them in adjusted rates. Clients appreciate knowing they received a discount or understanding why certain work has a surcharge. Transparency builds trust and makes adjustments feel fair rather than arbitrary.

Name Items Descriptively Use clear, professional names for discounts and charges that will make sense to clients. "Volume Discount - 10%" or "Rush Delivery Fee - 25%" immediately communicates what the adjustment is and why it exists. Vague names like "Adjustment" or "Fee" generate client questions and feel less legitimate.

Document the Reason When applying discounts or surcharges, add notes to the bill explaining why: "Discount applied for multi-year engagement commitment," or "Rush fee for 48-hour turnaround request." This documentation helps future reference and client communication.

Configure Standard Percentages Create pre-configured discount and charge items for your most common scenarios rather than creating custom ones each time. Standard items ensure consistency in how you price adjustments and make bill creation faster.

Review Total Impact Before finalizing bills with percentage adjustments, check that the final total makes sense. A 10% discount on a $50,000 bill is $5,000 - does that match your intent? Percentage math can create surprisingly large dollar amounts on big bills, so verify the resulting total feels appropriate.

Need Help?

Percentage-based discounts and charges provide flexible pricing while maintaining transparency. Configure standard items for common scenarios to streamline billing.

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