When you work with a talent agency or staffing supplier, the agency holds the Contract and receives the agreement, and each person doing the work sits under the agency as their own profile. Set this up correctly once and your Contracts go live without errors, invoices land on the right Task, and payment reaches the right party.

Who can do this: Admins, and teammates whose role lets them manage talent, change talent types and create Contracts.

Availability: Agency profile types are available on request. Ask your Business Solutions Architect or Worksuite Support to add them to your account.

Your workspace may use different names. Staffing suppliers may show as Agencies or Talent Agencies, workers as Talent, and the Partner field as Freelancer or Resource. The steps are the same.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

How agency profiles work

Every profile in your talent directory has a type. The type decides what the profile can do.

Profile typeWho it's forWhat it can do
Individual (for example, Freelancer)A person who works for you directlyHolds their own Contracts, tax details and bank details. Can't add other people.
BusinessA company that works for you directlySame as an individual. Can't add other people.
Staffing supplier (agency)A firm that supplies people to youAdds its own talent, holds Contracts for them and submits invoices for them.
Worker (agency-managed talent)A person who works for you through one agencyIs the person assigned to the Task. Linked to one agency only.

A few rules apply to every account:

  • Only staffing supplier profiles can add talent. If an agency says it has no option to add people, its profile has the wrong type.
  • Each worker belongs to one agency. Two agency profiles can't share the same worker.
  • Each email address can belong to only one profile.
  • An agency that joins through an invite link set to an individual type registers as an individual. Change its type afterwards, as described below.

Add an agency

  1. In the side menu, under Index, click Staffing suppliers.
  2. Click Add staffing supplier.
  3. Enter the agency's Name / Company and the Email it will use to log in.
  4. (Optional) Choose the onboarding Workflow you use for agencies. Under More options, add relationship managers or groups.
  5. To invite the agency now, turn on the option to email them an invitation and click Add & Invite staffing suppliers. To invite them later, click Add staffing suppliers.

The agency appears in your Staffing suppliers list. The agency logs in with the email you entered, and its notifications go to that address. If several people at the agency need access, they can use a shared team inbox, or contact Worksuite Support about a separate login for each person.

Change an existing profile's type

Use this when an agency registered as an individual, or when a freelancer should be managed by an agency.

  1. Go to Index → All Partners and find the profile.
  2. Select it, open the actions menu, and click Change partner type.
  3. In Choose new partner type, select the type you need.
  4. If you chose the worker type, search for the agency in the Staffing supplier field and select it.
  5. Click Change.

You'll see "Partner types have been changed." Then assign the onboarding workflow that matches the new type. You can also change several profiles at once from the bulk actions on All Partners.

It can take a few minutes for the change to show in lists. If the worker still doesn't appear in the agency's list, contact Worksuite Support. Changing a type doesn't move any Contracts the profile already has. To move existing Contracts, contact Worksuite Support.

How agencies add their talent

Agencies add their own people from their account, with each person's Name / Company and Email. The agency enters the person's own full legal name, never the agency contact's name, because the name feeds agreements, tax forms and insurance documents.

Each person is linked to the agency as soon as the agency adds them. Ask agencies to search their list before adding someone, because a duplicate profile can send work and payments to the wrong place.

If the agency gets a message that a profile with this email is already registered, that address belongs to another profile. The agency can use a different address for the person, or ask Worksuite Support to archive the old profile.

Share Set Up Your Agency Account and Manage Your Talent with your agencies for their side of these steps.

Choose who gets paid

The party that gets paid and the party whose tax details are on file must be the same. There are two valid setups:

SetupWhose bank detailsWhose tax details
Paid via the agencyThe agency'sThe agency's
Paid directlyThe worker's ownThe worker's own

A mix, such as the agency's bank details with the worker's tax details, can't be paid.

If your account pays some agency talent directly, the agency sees a Worker is paid directly checkbox when it adds a person. Leave it unticked to pay the agency. Once the person is saved, this setting can't be changed in Worksuite, so ask Worksuite Support to change it.

A directly paid worker needs their own tax details and payout method before their Contract can go live. If one is missing, the Contract shows "Activation blocked" in Workers and payment routing. The agency can add the details for the worker: in its Workers menu, it clicks Act as Worker on the person, enters a reason, and completes Tax information and Payout methods in the worker's settings.

Create a Contract for agency-managed talent

Important: Add the person under the agency before you make the Contract live. You can save the Contract as a draft first, while the agency confirms who will do the work.
  1. Go to Contracts → All Contracts, click New Contract and select the template you use for agency work.
  2. In Partner, select the agency.
  3. On each Task, in Task Partner, select the person from the agency's list.
  4. Complete the rest of the Contract and click Save and make live.

The agreement goes to the agency's login email, not to the person's email. The Task shows on the person's profile, with the agency listed under Staffing supplier.

Two setups cause problems:

  • The same profile as Partner and Task Partner. If the Partner is an agency, the Task Partner must be a person under that agency.
  • A Contract on the person's own profile when the agency is paid. Worksuite treats it as direct pay and asks the person for their own tax and bank details. Create the Contract with the agency as Partner instead.

Fix "Task vendor is not the staffing supplier's worker"

You'll see this message when you save a Contract or make it live. It means the Task Partner isn't linked as a worker of the agency you chose as Partner. Usually the Task is assigned to the agency itself, or to a profile that has the wrong type or sits under a different agency.

To fix it:

  1. Make sure the person is added under the agency. If their profile already exists, change its type to worker and link it to the agency, as described above.
  2. Open the Contract and select that person in Task Partner.
  3. Save the Contract and make it live again.

A similar message, "Task vendor is not the contract's partner", means the Partner is an individual and the Task is assigned to someone else. For an individual, the Task Partner must be that same person.

How invoices work for agency talent

Invoices go against the worker's active Task, not against a cancelled Task. The agency can submit them in three ways:

  • Open the Task and add the invoice there.
  • Go to Invoices, create an invoice, and select the worker and their Task.
  • From its Workers menu, use Act as Worker on the person, then create the invoice as them.

Your team can also create an invoice from the worker's profile. See How to create an invoice in a talent's profile. Invoices sent by email aren't processed.

What Worksuite Support does for you

Contact Worksuite Support for these changes:

  • Changing an agency's login email
  • Changing whether a worker is paid directly after they're saved
  • Moving existing Contracts between a freelancer and an agency, or between agencies
  • Archiving duplicate profiles so an email address can be reused
  • Refreshing an agency's list of workers if someone still doesn't appear after a type change
  • Resetting onboarding or insurance stages after a person was added with the wrong name

When you write in, include your Worksuite workspace address and the names of the profiles involved.

Support/Resources

Still have questions about agencies and agency-managed talent? Click Support in the bottom-left corner of Worksuite to contact our Support team, or email support@worksuite.com. Including a link to the page you're on and a screenshot helps us answer faster.