Hourly Billing Problem in Agency Accounts

[mobeenayub]

I am stuck in a problem; I am getting hourly contracts on which I want to assign different freelancers who I have hired in my agency.

My client doesn't need to know this because I negotiate only the TOTAL number of Hours put in by all of my employee/ agency freelancers combined; For Example, 3 of my employees will put in 100 hours combined per week, so I'll tell my client to keep the weekly limit at 100 hours and then I'll distribute the hours individually amongst all employees by assigning them individual weekly limits. But this does not seem to be possible at all.

I have clear communication with my clients about deliverables and total number of hours. Why isn't it possible to assign to my agency freelancers without asking my clients to hire those freelancers as its a lot of admin work for them on Upwork Platform.

Afterall, they see the agency profile and the Freelancers/ Employees I have at my agency page, why do they specifically need to hire the specific agency person as well? I might be taking work from 10 freelancers or just 2 freelancers; Once I have negotiated an hourly rate, upwork should total the hours all of my freelancers/ agency employees put in, bill the client at my rate and allow me to pay to my workers at out internally finalized rate.

[AveryO]

Hi M, 

I'm sorry to confirm that this is not how agency accounts are designed. I understand how this can be an inconvenience for your client, and I will relay your feedback to the team. 

In the meantime, if your agency freelancers are exclusive members of your agency, the client can hire them directly when they go to the agency freelancer's account. Alternatively, you have the option of sending proposals on behalf of your agency freelancer, and your client should be able to hire your freelancer from there. Your non-exclusive agency freelancers (if there are any) can also submit proposals from the agency.

 
You can learn more about exclusivity and default teams here.