This guide describes how an agency (an employer with freelance subcontractors) can register on your marketplace and receive payments for the work that their subcontractors do.
Depending on your marketplace vertical, you may try to seed your marketplace with users from various marketing campaigns and existing contacts. You could also approach agencies that already employ their own pool of talent workers to onboard them on your platform. This is a win-win because the agency will receive a new stream of work via your platform, and by onboarding a single agency you could seed your platform with dozens of freelancers.
Video Guide
Step by Step Guide
In your admin dashboard is the option to ‘Enable agencies? (Optional)’. This feature gives your freelancers the additional choice of choosing between different freelancer types when registering, which can change the flow of funds within your platform.
Enabling this feature creates a new field on the freelancer registration page (app.YourMarketplace.com/register), where the user can choose what type of freelancer they are. You can change the terminology in your content file, however there are three types of freelancers: Independent freelancers, Agency employer and Agency employee. In the image below these are labeled as Contractors, Employer and Employee.
Independent freelancers can register and use the platform using the default user flows and payment methods that already exist.
Agency employers register on this page, and once they have completed the onboarding process via Stripe will receive funds for any work their employees complete on the platform.
Their employees when registering must select ‘Employee’ and will be given the option to choose the agency that they work for. The name that the agency employer used to register is what will appear in the drop-down list for the employee to select as their Agency.
Agency employees are not required to onboard on Stripe, they can begin applying for positions and working once their profile has been activated. The agency employees will not receive any payments for the work they do on-platform. Instead the agency employer will receive all payments via Stripe, and they will pay their employees off-site.
There is an additional feature that can be enabled relating to this marketplace model, which gives the agency employee the ability to choose what address is displayed on the invoice that is automatically generated by the platform. The employee does the work, however the employer receives the funds, so the employee can choose whether the invoice address should be their own address, or their employers.
Enabling the feature ‘Display the Agency’s address on the Agency Freelancer’s invoices? (Optional)’ will create the field seen in the image above where there is a drop-down option titled ‘Invoice Address’. There are two options: ‘Agency Address’ and ‘My Address’.
Enabling the agency feature also provides you, the marketplace owner, the ability to manually pay freelancers that are registered outside of the Stripe zone. Seeing as they cannot receive automatic payments via Stripe, they can register under an agency account that you create. You will then receive all payments for work they have done, at which point you can manually send funds to them via PayPal (or another method if you prefer). This is done by enabling the feature ‘Automatically register freelancers outside the Stripe zone under your default agency? (Optional)’. More information on how to set up payments to users outside of the Stripe zone in this guide.
You can view the various user types that have onboarded onto your platform via the ‘Users’ menu item of the admin dashboard.
