TL;DR
- On a contract desk, the timesheet is where the money is: no approved timesheet, no invoice, no margin.
- Good timesheet software for a recruitment agency covers the whole loop: the contractor fills it in, the client signs it off without creating an account, late timesheets are chased automatically, and the invoice is built from the approved days.
- In Marvin, contractors fill in a monthly timesheet in their own space (People), the client signs from a secure link, your team gives the final approval, and Cash drafts the invoice. Every signature is recorded with what was signed.
- Marvin does not run payroll (PAYE/RTI) and does not decide IR35 status. It hands your payroll provider clean, signed timesheets.
Why timesheets are still the bottleneck on a contract desk
Ask any contract recruiter what eats their month-end and the answer is rarely sourcing. It is timesheets.
The usual loop looks like this. The contractor sends a spreadsheet or a scanned PDF by email. Someone at the agency forwards it to the client contact, who is busy and replies a week later, or never. Once approved, the days are typed again into the invoicing tool, then again into the margin spreadsheet. Each step is a chance to lose a day, invoice the wrong rate or bill a month late.
The cost is not only time. A timesheet approved by a "looks fine" email is weak evidence if the client later disputes an invoice. And when your consultants spend the last week of the month chasing signatures, they are not placing anyone.
Timesheet software built for recruitment agencies exists to close that loop: one place where the timesheet is filled in, signed, approved and turned into an invoice.
What timesheet software for a recruitment agency should do
Generic time-tracking tools are built for employees logging hours on internal projects. An agency has a different problem: three parties (contractor, client, agency) have to agree on the same days before anyone gets paid. Look for:
- Contractor self-service. The contractor fills in their own timesheet, from their own space, without emailing files.
- Client sign-off without another login. Your client will not create an account to approve one timesheet a month. A secure link is the norm.
- An audit trail. Who signed, when, and exactly what they signed, so that a disputed invoice can be answered with evidence.
- Automatic chasers. Reminders to contractors who have not submitted, and to client contacts who have not signed.
- Invoicing from approved days. The invoice should be generated from the approved timesheet, not re-typed from it.
- Margin per assignment. The client rate, the contractor rate and the margin, visible without a separate spreadsheet.
- Honest limits. Clarity on what the tool does not do, such as payroll, so you know what stays with your payroll provider.
How the timesheet workflow works in Marvin
Marvin is a recruitment platform where the ATS and CRM (Desk), the contractor space (People) and invoicing (Cash) share the same data. Here is the timesheet loop, step by step.
1. The contractor fills in a monthly timesheet
Each contractor gets a personal space in People. They sign in with a link sent by email, or with their Google account, so there is no password to manage.
Every month, they fill in one timesheet, morning and afternoon. Each half-day is allocated to an assignment, to time off or left empty. A contractor working for two clients in the same month still fills in a single timesheet. When time off is approved, it is pre-filled in the timesheet, so it is not entered twice.
On submission, the contractor signs electronically. Marvin then creates one timesheet per assignment, each one ready to be sent to the right client.
2. The client signs off from a secure link, without an account
For each assignment, you name the client contacts allowed to approve timesheets. When a timesheet is submitted, the client contact receives an email with a secure link. They open the timesheet in the browser and either approve it or send it back with a comment.
A few safeguards sit behind that simple screen:
- the link expires after 7 days, and sending a new link disables the old one;
- the agency can require a one-time code sent by email before the client can sign;
- each signature is stored with its date, the signer's name and email, their IP address, and a snapshot of the timesheet as it was signed, with a fingerprint of that snapshot. If the timesheet changes later, you can still show what was approved.
If the client already approves timesheets in their own system and sends you a signed PDF, you can attach that document to the timesheet instead.
3. Your team gives the final approval
Approval follows a fixed order: the contractor declares the days, the client confirms them, then your agency approves. Only then is the timesheet ready to invoice.
Two real-world exceptions are covered:
- Assignments without client sign-off. Some clients do not want to sign timesheets. You can switch client sign-off off for that assignment, and your team approves directly. The client receives neither requests nor reminders.
- Sign-off received another way. When a client confirms outside Marvin, a recruiter can record the client's sign-off and name the contact who gave it. It is stored with the same snapshot of the timesheet as a signature made from the link.
When the client or your team rejects a timesheet, it goes back to the contractor with the reason, and the contractor corrects and resubmits it.
4. Late timesheets are chased automatically
Chasing is where most month-end time goes. Marvin can send, per agency settings:
- a month-end reminder to every contractor on assignment who has not submitted their timesheet;
- follow-up reminders, at the interval you choose, until the previous month is submitted;
- a reminder to a contractor whose timesheet was sent back for correction;
- reminders to the client contact who has not signed yet, with a cap after which the recruiter is notified instead;
- a reminder when the contractor's own invoice for the month is missing.
These reminders are off by default. You switch them on and set the timing and the email template for your agency.
5. Approved days become a client invoice
As soon as every timesheet of the month is approved for an assignment, Cash drafts the client invoice: the approved days multiplied by the day rate set on the assignment, with a clear line description (assignment, contractor, month). Expenses that the contractor marked as rechargeable to the client are added as a separate line.
You review the draft, issue it, and email it to the client with its PDF attached. Cash then tracks payments, credit notes and overdue invoices, and you can export invoices to CSV for your accountant. If you invoice from another tool, you can switch automatic invoice drafting off.
6. Margin per assignment, frozen month by month
Each assignment carries the client day rate and the contractor's rate, so Marvin shows the margin per assignment without a spreadsheet. When a timesheet receives its final approval, the rates and the margin for that month are frozen on it. A later rate increase does not rewrite the margin of past months.
Contractor invoices, limited companies and umbrella companies
Many contractors invoice you through their own limited company or through an umbrella company. In Marvin, the contractor can upload their invoice for the month from their People space. You can also email a deposit link to a third party, such as an umbrella company, so they can upload the invoice without an account. The link is limited to one assignment and one month, and shows no financial data.
Your team finds each invoice on the assignment and marks it as reconciled once checked.
What Marvin does not do
Being clear about limits saves everyone a bad surprise after go-live.
- No payroll. Marvin does not run PAYE or RTI submissions and does not produce payslips. Approved timesheets can be downloaded as signed PDFs and passed to your payroll provider or to the contractor's umbrella company.
- No IR35 status determination. Marvin does not assess whether an engagement is inside or outside IR35. That decision, and the documents that go with it, stay with your existing process and advisers. You can store and share those documents with the contractor in Marvin.
- Days, not hours. Timesheets are recorded in days and half-days, which fits contractors on a day rate. Hourly, shift-based timesheets are not supported today.
- Your invoicing set-up. 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 any timesheet software vendor
Whichever tool you shortlist, these questions separate a real agency timesheet tool from a time tracker with a logo:
- Can the client approve without creating an account, and what proves what they approved?
- Can a contractor working for two clients fill in one timesheet?
- What happens when a client rejects a timesheet? Does the contractor see why?
- Who receives reminders, how often, and can I switch them off per client?
- Is the invoice generated from approved days, or exported and re-typed?
- Does the margin of a past month change if I update a rate today?
- What does the tool explicitly not do (payroll, IR35, hourly timesheets)?
Running a mixed perm and contract desk?
Timesheets are only half of a contract desk. The other half is finding contractors, keeping track of who becomes available and redeploying them before the bench. We cover the whole picture in our guide to contract and temp recruitment software.
You can also read how we protect your data, or see the timesheet loop on your own assignments: book a demo.
