An agreement is either client specific requirements or general business terms. Think of it as terms of business.
An agreement can be linked to vacancies or placements linked to just one specific Client. They can also be left open and can be applied to any vacancy or placement.
Compliance, Staged Fees, Agreed Margins/Fees, Rates and Expenses can be applied to the agreement, so that they will be applied to the placement record. The more added to the agreement, the easier it is when managing the placement.
The agreement can only link to one specific vacancy Type. Permanent, Contract or Temporary. You would need to build separate agreements if you are working with multiple job types. The nice part is we have a feature that allows you to clone an agreement. This makes using this building the agreements a quick and efficient process.
Do I have to use Agreements?
No. This is an optional function.
However, this tool is there to ensure that a candidate that is placed and a placement record is 100% compliant. On contract and temporary roles where this is part of the agencies responsibility, we highly recommend agreements are used.
Each compliance criteria must be marked off as "Checked", which leads to achieving a Compliance Complete score of 100%. The placement status will not move on to "Live" until all compliance has been checked and completed. The compliance required appears on the Compliance and Onboarding tabs of the placement, which is pulled through from the list displayed within the agreement.
NOTE: There is the option to create Non Client-Specifiable Compliance, which does not require an agreement. Any Compliance Criterion set up this way will then link to every placement that is created and will go towards the Compliance Complete score. This is useful when every placement needs the same few checks done, with no alternatives. For example for a permanent only agency, the requirement may always be an ID check for all placements. In this example, building and applying an agreement would be unnecessary and just setting up the compliance correctly would mean it would automatically appear on every placement.
When would I use an Agreement?
As mentioned above, the agreement is recommended to be used when using Compliance. It is also useful when multiple rates have been agreed or staged fees on retained roles.
If the candidate portal is being used by your candidates to manage their expenses, then the Expenses Types must be listed against each Agreement. If these are not applied, there will be no dropdown options within the portal and the Candidates will not be able to log their expenses.
The agreement will pull through fields that have been entered through to the vacancy and the placement. These fields include:
- Margin% - contract & temporary only (this is an optional field but useful when a margin is the same percentage. This amount can be overwritten on the vacancy)
- Mark-up/Fee% or Set Fee – permanent only (this is an optional field but useful if the fee has been agreed at a set amount. This amount can be overwritten on the vacancy)
- Fee Based On - permanent only (this is an optional field but useful if the fee has been agreed at a set amount. This amount can be overwritten on the vacancy)
- Compliance criteria (this is an optional but the main reason for using an agreement)
- Onboarding/offboarding criteria (compliance can be set up and classed as compliance or onboarding within the system. It is an internal preference)
- Rates (multiple rate types can be added. These will then be displayed on the Finance tab of the placement under the Finance Rates section. The rate amounts cannot be pre-set in the agreement. These must be manually entered on the placement)
- Expenses. If set expenses have been agreed with the Client, then they can be added against the Agreement. NOTE: If the Candidate Portal is being used for candidates to upload their expenses, they must be added to an Agreement and the Agreement needs to be linked to the Placement, in order for the candidate to be able to select from a list of 'Expense Types'.
Terms of business can also be stored on the agreement. To upload these, go to the Related tab and navigate to the Document folder.
Specific requirements or restrictions can be added on the General tab.
How do I create an Agreement?
Agreements can only be created by users who have been given permissions. There are two permissions associated with Agreements; first in order to create new Agreements and second to amend Agreements.
Go to the Agreements menu on the left-hand side. On the top bar, there is a button named +New. Click on this to create a new Agreement:
Complete the fields on the General page.
If the Agreement is client specific, enter the client name in the Client field within the General section:
Multiple Agreements may need to be created for a Client. If it is easier, use the Clone button on the top ribbon. If the details on the agreement are similar, it will save a lot of time.