TL;DR
- A contract or temp desk lives on the assignment, not on the hire. Rates, timesheets, client sign-off, monthly invoices, margin and the end date matter as much as the shortlist.
- Most agencies run it on an ATS plus a timesheet portal plus an invoicing tool plus a margin spreadsheet. The cost is re-keying, late invoices and contractors who finish without anyone noticing.
- Marvin keeps everything on one record: candidates and clients in Desk, assignments and the contractor space in People, invoices in Cash, for both contract and perm placements.
- Marvin fits contractors and interim managers on a day rate. It does not run payroll, decide IR35 status or handle hourly temp timesheets.
Why a contract desk needs different software
On a perm desk, the job is done when the candidate starts and the fee is invoiced. On a contract desk, that is when the work begins. For months, sometimes years, the agency has to:
- agree a client rate and a contractor rate, and protect the margin between them;
- collect a timesheet every month and get it signed off by the client;
- invoice the client from those approved days, on time, every month;
- handle the contractor's own invoices, often through a limited company or an umbrella company;
- see the end of the assignment coming, and redeploy the contractor before they are lost to another agency.
Most recruitment software was designed around the perm pipeline. Contract work gets bolted on: a timesheet portal on one side, an accounting tool on the other, and a spreadsheet in the middle to work out the margin. Every interface between them is a place where days are re-typed and invoices go out late.
What contract and temp recruitment software should cover
Before comparing vendors, list what your desk actually does between the signed contract and the last invoice:
- A candidate pool with real availability. Who is on assignment, who is free, who finishes soon.
- Assignments with their rates. Client day rate, contractor rate, dates, client contacts.
- Contractor timesheets with client sign-off that does not require the client to create an account.
- Invoices generated from approved days, not re-typed from them.
- Margin per assignment, visible without a spreadsheet.
- A contractor self-service space for timesheets, time off, expenses, invoices and documents.
- Perm placements in the same tool, if your agency places both.
- A clear statement of limits: payroll, compliance checks and anything else the vendor leaves to you.
How Marvin covers the contract lifecycle
Marvin is a recruitment platform made of apps that share the same data. For a contract desk, three of them do the work.
Desk: candidates, clients and the pipeline
Desk is the ATS and CRM: candidates, client companies and contacts, jobs and the hiring pipeline. Contract and perm roles go through the same pipeline, so your consultants work in one tool whatever the role.
When a contractor's assignment is due to end within the next 60 days, their availability score goes up. Your team sees who is about to free up and can line up the next assignment before the bench, not after.
People: assignments and the contractor space
People holds the assignments: the client, the dates, the client day rate, the contractor's rate and the client contacts allowed to sign timesheets. Margin per assignment is calculated from those rates.
Each contractor also gets a personal People space, opened with a link sent by email or a Google account. From there they:
- see their assignments;
- fill in one monthly timesheet, by half-day, even across several assignments, and sign it on submission;
- request time off, which is pre-filled in their timesheet once approved;
- submit expenses with their receipts, and flag those to be recharged to the client;
- upload their own invoice for the month;
- download the documents you choose to share with them, such as their assignment contract.
The client signs off each timesheet from a secure link, without an account, and your team gives the final approval. Every signature is recorded with a snapshot of what was signed. Reminders to contractors and to client contacts can run automatically. The full loop is described in our guide to timesheet software for recruitment agencies.
Cash: invoices for contract and perm
Cash turns approved work into invoices:
- Contract: when every timesheet of the month is approved for an assignment, Cash drafts the client invoice, approved days multiplied by the day rate, with rechargeable expenses on a separate line. You review, issue and email it with its PDF.
- Perm: when a candidate is hired, Cash drafts the placement fee invoice. The fee can be split into instalments, for example a first invoice at the start date and the balance later. Each instalment is issued by your team when its milestone is actually reached.
Cash then tracks payments, credit notes and overdue invoices, and exports invoices to CSV for your accountant. When a timesheet receives its final approval, that month's rates and margin are frozen, so a later rate change never rewrites past margins.
Mixed perm and contract agencies
Many UK agencies run both desks, sometimes with the same consultants. The usual trap is two tools: a perm ATS and a separate contract system, with candidates duplicated between them.
In Marvin, a candidate placed on a perm role last year and on a contract today is the same record, with one history. The perm fee and the monthly contract invoices land in the same invoicing app. Your reporting does not have to stitch two databases together.
Where Marvin fits, and where it does not
"Contract and temp" covers very different businesses. Being precise about fit saves you a migration that goes wrong.
Marvin fits well if your agency places:
- IT, engineering or professional contractors on a day rate;
- interim managers on longer assignments;
- a mix of perm placements and day-rate contracts.
Marvin is not the right tool on its own if:
- most of your workers are paid by the hour on weekly timesheets, with shifts and weekly pay runs. Marvin records time in days and half-days, not hours;
- you need your software to run payroll. Marvin does not run PAYE or RTI payroll and does not produce payslips. It hands your payroll provider or the contractor's umbrella company approved, signed timesheets;
- you expect the software to decide IR35 status. Marvin does not make status determinations; you can store and share the related documents with the contractor.
Before you switch off your current invoicing tool, check with us during the demo how Cash fits your currency and tax set-up.
Questions to ask before you choose
- Does the contract side share the same candidate and client records as the perm side?
- Can the client approve timesheets without an account, and what is kept as proof?
- Is the client invoice generated from approved days, or exported and re-typed?
- Is margin per assignment visible, and does it stay fixed for past months?
- What does the contractor see, and what stays internal (your client rate, your margin)?
- Can a perm fee be invoiced in instalments?
- What does the vendor explicitly not do: payroll, IR35, hourly timesheets, compliance checks?
See it on your own desk
The quickest way to judge contract recruitment software is to run one of your real assignments through it: the contractor's timesheet, the client sign-off, the invoice. You can read how we protect your data, or book a demo and we will walk through it with your own case.
