Who This Is For
Accounting firms, bookkeeping practices, fractional CFOs, consultancies, and other professional services teams share the same problem: you bill by the hour (or need to know your effective rate), but nobody wants to run a manual timer all day. The fix in Rize is to set up three things once -- a team workspace, a set of labels for your service lines, and your clients -- and then let automatic tracking fill in the timesheets.
This guide walks through that setup and the order that works best.
The Three Things to Set Up
- A team workspace -- the shared space your firm works in, with members, roles, and billing settings.
- Labels -- your service lines (Tax Prep, Bookkeeping, Advisory, and so on). Rize uses AI to apply these to every member's tracked time automatically.
- Clients -- who the work is for, with hourly rates so billable value and profitability calculate themselves.
Get these three right and your reports -- billable hours by client, utilization by service line, effective rate -- build themselves from tracked work.
Step 1: Create Your Team Workspace
If you have not already, create your firm's workspace and invite your team. Click +Add Team, name it, then invite members from the Members page and assign roles. Seats are added automatically at a prorated rate as you invite people.
For the full workspace setup -- roles, integrations, and a rollout order that drives adoption -- see Setting Up a Team and Team Plans and Seats.
Step 2: Define Labels for Your Service Lines
Labels are the heart of a professional services setup. A label is a team-wide category -- a service line -- and Rize's AI reads each tracked time entry and assigns the label that fits. Once your labels are defined, every member's timesheet is automatically broken down by service line without anyone tagging anything.
Manage them under Settings > Labels. Each label has a name, a color, an emoji, a short description, and an AI prompt that tells Rize which work belongs to it. You can seed a default set and then refine.
Example labels for an accounting firm
- Tax Preparation -- returns, tax software, IRS forms
- Bookkeeping -- ledgers, reconciliations, accounting software
- Audit & Assurance -- fieldwork, workpapers, testing
- Advisory / CAS -- client advisory, planning, analysis
- Payroll -- payroll runs and filings
- Client Onboarding -- setup and document collection for new clients
- Business Development -- proposals, calls, and prospecting
- Firm Admin (non-billable) -- internal ops, training, and meetings
Mark internal categories like Firm Admin clearly so utilization reports can separate billable service work from overhead.
Writing a good label prompt
The AI prompt is what Rize uses to decide whether a stretch of tracked work belongs to a label, so be concrete. Name the tools, apps, document types, and keywords that signal that service line. For example, a Tax Preparation prompt might read:
Time spent preparing tax returns -- working in tax software such as Lacerte, ProConnect, Drake, or UltraTax; reviewing 1040, 1120, or 1065 forms; and organizing client tax documents.
The more specific the prompt, the more accurately Rize routes each timesheet -- and the less anyone has to correct.
Keep the list focused
A team can have up to 30 active labels. That is plenty for a firm's service lines, and the limit is a feature: a short, meaningful list produces cleaner reports than dozens of overlapping tags. Archive seasonal labels (for example, a busy-season-only category) when they are not in use rather than letting the list sprawl.
Step 3: Add Your Clients and Set Billing Rates
Where labels answer "what kind of work," clients answer "who it was for." Add each client so Rize can attribute tracked time to them and calculate billable value.
Choose a billing rate strategy for the team:
- Team Member Hourly Rate -- each person's work bills at their individual rate. Best when senior and junior staff bill differently.
- Client Hourly Rate -- all work for a client bills at one blended rate you set on the client.
Set this under your team's billing settings; see Team Billing Settings for the details and where each rate lives.
How It All Comes Together
Once members are tracking, the setup pays off in reporting:
- Utilization by service line -- labels break every member's time into billable service work vs. Firm Admin and business development, so you can see realization at a glance.
- Billable hours by client -- clients plus rates turn tracked time into billable value and invoice-ready totals.
- Profitability -- combine client rates with cost rates to see margin per client and per engagement. See Tracking Profitability.
For the reporting surfaces and exports themselves -- including grouping by label -- see Reports and Exports.
Recommended Rollout Order
- Create the workspace and invite admins first -- bring in whoever owns billing and reporting before the whole firm.
- Define your labels and write their prompts -- do this before broad rollout so the AI classifies correctly from day one.
- Add clients and set your billing rate strategy -- so billable value is right from the first tracked hour.
- Invite the full team and frame the privacy model -- Rize captures metadata (app, window title, URL, timestamps), never screenshots or keystrokes. This framing drives adoption more than anything else.
- Review for the first week -- have members glance at their entries daily; each correction sharpens the label prompts and tagging.
- Turn on reporting -- once tagging is steady, use utilization, client, and profitability reports for staffing and pricing decisions.
Related Reading
- Setting Up a Team -- workspace, members, and roles
- Team Plans and Seats -- how seats are billed
- Reports and Exports -- group by label, client, and more
- Tracking Profitability -- turn rated time into margin