# Bill rates

Bill rates are maintained at both the account level (defaults) and project level. When a new project is created, the account-level bill rates are used as a template for setting up initial bill rates for the project. Adding a user to the project (for example, by making an assignment) causes additional user-specific rates to be created in the project. These user-specific bill rates are determined by looking up the existing role-specific and discipline-specific rates and matching them up with the user's role and discipline to find the best match.

A [phase](/api/resource_management/openapi/phases) may have its own bill rate or refer to the parent project. You can add and edit phase-specific bill rates through the user interface of the application. When setting up a phase to have its own bill rate, the parent project bill rates are used as a template, much like the way account default bill rates are used as a template when setting up project bill rates. If a phase is set up to have its own bill rate, adding users to the phase results in user-specific rates being created for the phase, just like it does for projects.

The API allows you to manipulate bill rates directly for projects and phases. However, changing account default bill rates is restricted to Administrators.