> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.invup.me/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Invite your team
> Invitations, contributors, rates and what happens when someone leaves.
There are two ways people appear in your organization, and they are not variations of the same thing.
**Team members** are invited by email, log in, and work in the product.
**Contributors** never log in at all. They are added directly by an administrator, managed through Slack, and exist so that people outside your business can have their time tracked without being given an account.
Team management is restricted to owners and admins. The Free plan is limited to one team member, so inviting a second person means moving to Pro. See [Choose your plan](/setup/choose-your-plan).
## Invite a team member
Add the person's email address and choose the role they should hold. **Member** is the default, and is the right answer for most people doing day to day work.
They receive an email with a link. Accepting adds your organization to their account, whether they already had an Invup account or are creating one.
An invitation is bound to the address it was sent to. To move it to a different address, cancel it and send a new one.
A new team member has no rate until you give them one. Until then, work they log resolves to a rate only if the project or service supplies it.
Rates are covered in full in [Rates](/setup/rates).
## Tracking invitations
Every invitation has a status, and the list can be filtered by it.
| Status | Meaning |
| ------------- | --------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Pending** | Sent, not yet answered. |
| **Accepted** | The person has joined. |
| **Declined** | The person turned it down. |
| **Expired** | It sat unanswered too long and can no longer be accepted. |
| **Cancelled** | You withdrew it. |
From the actions on a pending invitation you can **resend** it, **change the role** it will grant, **cancel** it so it can no longer be accepted, or **delete** it outright.
Changing the role on a pending invitation is the quiet time saver here. It avoids cancelling, re-sending, and explaining to the recipient why they received two emails.
## Contributors
Contributors are for people who need their time tracked but should not have an account: subcontractors, external collaborators, associates on a single engagement.
They are added directly, with a name, an email address and their rates. There is no invitation and nothing for them to accept. They are matched to a Slack account on the next sync, and from then on they log time through Slack.
Until that sync happens a contributor shows as unmatched, which is expected rather than a fault.
Deleting a contributor permanently removes them **and all of their time entries**. It cannot be undone, and Invup asks you to type a confirmation phrase before it will proceed. If the person has simply finished their engagement, this is almost never what you want.
## Rates on a team member
Each team member carries two rates, and they answer different questions.
**Hourly rate** is what you bill a client for an hour of this person's time. It is the last link in the rate chain, used when no more specific rate applies.
**Cost rate** is what that hour costs your business. It does not appear on invoices. It is what lets you see the difference between what a project earned and what it consumed.
## When someone leaves
**Deactivate** them rather than deleting them. A deactivated team member loses access to the organization immediately, while their history, time entries and everything those entries have been billed on stay intact.
You can reactivate them later, which makes this the right move for parental leave, sabbaticals and seasonal staff as much as for departures.
## Transferring ownership
Every organization has exactly one owner. Transferring ownership is immediate, and the previous owner becomes an admin at the same moment.
Invup asks you to type the new owner's name to confirm, because there is no undo and only the new owner can transfer it back.
## Next
What each role can actually do, and how to build your own.
Set up the businesses you invoice.