Portals
Most agencies manage their sub-vendors over WhatsApp.
Which works until two partner firms call the same person on the same day, and you find out when both of them invoice you for the placement.
The mechanism the page is named after
The first firm to submit owns that person, for a window their contract sets.
A second firm trying to submit the same candidate on the same role is refused, and told the date the claim expires. Better than that: they are told before they submit. A live check runs as they type, and it answers one of three ways — free, already yours, or held by somebody else.
When it is held by somebody else they see a name and nothing more. No email, no phone, no CV, no hint of which firm holds it. Enough to stop the wasted call, not enough to poach. Withdraw a submission and the claim releases.
- Candidate PAvailableNo live claim — go ahead
- Candidate QYoursYour submission · 02 Sep
- Candidate RClaimedHeld by another firm until 14 Octname only · no email, no phone, no CV
- Your median first touch1.8 dayson our submissions
- Slowest this quarter11 daysone role, twice
- Waiting on you now6listed, not summarised
What a vendor sees
Only what you assigned them — and the terms behind it.
A partner firm signs in and sees the requisitions you assigned and nothing else. Not your other roles, not your other vendors, not another firm's submissions.
The assignment carries its own commercial terms where you set them: a fee override, a cap on submissions, a minimum experience bar, a maximum notice period, a salary band, the submit-by deadline, and a note to that vendor alone. Their dashboard counts down to the deadline and lists what is due this week, so we never told them it was urgent stops being a defence.
- Two vendor-side roles with real teeth —
A vendor recruiter sees only their own submissions. A vendor admin sees the whole firm's, holds the roster, and is the only person who can raise an invoice or change bank details.
- No agreement, no submissions —
The gate is real, not advisory — the portal shows the banner and refuses the submit.
- Their terms summary, on file —
Dates, fee or flat fee, payment terms and the ownership window, visible to both sides, so a fee argument is a lookup.
- Offboarding is one action —
Move every live assignment from a departing teammate to another, without touching the submissions, placements or invoices attributed to them.
Their side of the business
A dashboard, not a submissions report.
A partner firm does not open a portal to admire your pipeline. They open it to answer three questions: what is working, who on my team is producing it, and when am I getting paid.
So the analytics run to a funnel and per-role breakdown, loss reasons, speed trends, a per-teammate leaderboard, idle assignments, revenue by teammate against invoice state, and expected receipts by week with overdue marked. Invoices are raised from their own placements, which appear already flagged as billable — no release for billing step on your side, because you still approve the invoice itself.
- The invoice knows its tax regime —
The intra-state and inter-state split, withholding, and tax and PAN identifiers snapshotted at issue, with a due date from the agreed terms and a PDF any teammate can read before the admin submits it.
- Consent is confirmed at submission —
And the CV they send is frozen on the submission, so the file you review is the file they sent.
The boundary, examined
Including two things that are not true yet.
›Can a partner firm see who our client is?
On an agency role today, yes — the client's name is on the requisition and on the submission. Gating it is an open item, and if confidentiality on that name is a condition for you, raise it on the call rather than assuming the switch exists.
›Can vendors add their own people?
Not today. You invite vendor users. Their admin can then manage the roster — change roles, disable, reactivate, reassign work — but the invitation comes from your side.
›Can they download the signed agreement?
They see the terms summary — dates, fee, payment terms, ownership window. The document itself is held on your side.
›What stops two firms working the same candidate?
The claim and its clock. The first submission holds that person on that role for the window in their agreement, the duplicate check warns the second firm before they submit, and withdrawing releases the claim.
›Do they see how slowly we respond?
Yes — median first touch, worst case, and the live list of their submissions you have not opened. You see the same numbers. That is deliberate; a boundary measured in one direction only is a boundary nobody trusts.
›How deep can the chain go?
One level. A vendor can delegate to a sub-vendor; a sub-vendor cannot delegate again, and that cap is permanent rather than pending.
Book a demo
Invite a partner firm on the call.
Assign them a role, then try to submit the same person twice from two firms. What the second one is told is the whole product.