Hi, I have the question from my Blog reader: “After trying for weeks, I’m trawling the net for Microsoft Project, to find out how to add day rates per resource to the schedule. I can do this in SAP, but not every firm has it. These cost are variable and should change automatically if the duration increases, – lets say the dates get pushed out, and work takes place on a Saturday I should see a cost increase with out having to go through each activity one by one……
Have you work with this ?”

I will show you the solution using Microsoft Project 2016. first I’m going to create very simple Project, with one Task:

For this example I’m going to modify Standard Calendar in a way that every Saturday and Sunday will be working day:

Now I will create two Resources, John with $100 Standard rate, and Mary with $200 Standard rate:

Finally, I will assign John and Mary to the Task:

Let’s see the Cost Table:

and:

As you can see Total Cost is $12.000,00. John will work 5 days * 8 hours per day * $100 per hour = 40 hours * $100 = $4.000, and Mary will work 5 days * 8 hours per day * $200 per hour = 40 hours * $200 = $8.000. So John + Mary = $4.000 + $8.000 = $12.000

Now let’s say that John will be paid $150 per weekend and Mary will be paid $300. To do that I must do next:

and:

Now I will put 10 days in Duration for the Task:

and again, let’s see the Cost Table:

As you can see Total Cost is $26.400,00. John will work 5 days * 8 hours per day * $100 per hour = 40 hours * $100 = $4.000, then on Saturday and Sunday he will work 2 days * 8 hours per day *  $150 = 16 hours * $150 = $2.400, and again from Monday to Wednesday he will work 3 days * 8 hours per day * $100 per hour = 24 hours * $100 = $2.400. So John will have $4.000 + $2.400 + $2.400 = $8.800
Mary will work 5 days * 8 hours per day * $200 per hour = 40 hours * $200 = $8.000, then on Saturday and Sunday she will work 2 days * 8 hours per day *  $300 = 16 hours * $300 = $4.800, and again from Monday to Wednesday she will work 3 days * 8 hours per day * $200 per hour = 24 hours * $200 = $4.800. So John will have $8.000 + $4.800 + $4.800 = $17.600. So John + Mary = $8.800 + $17.600 = $26.400

So this is solution! BUT! If you have those double rates for John and Mary for every weekend than you should put it manually, like I did for every weekend. there is no way to put so called “weekend” rates or something like that in MS Project. It is only date based.

Regards!