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aralko1
Community Member

How to hire individual freelancer when he is agency owner?

Hello! 

I am owner of the agency (specified as Non-exclisive Freelancer of the agency), but asked my client to send me a new contract as to individual contractor. But when he clicks 'Hire Now' button on my profile page the offer goes to the agency. How to make it to be accounted on the individual freelancer account not agency?

Please help.

ACCEPTED SOLUTION
BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Andrei,

 

As a non-exclusive member of an Agency, you're able to Change Default Team. After changing it, the offers will not be accepted under the Agency by default.

 

Let us know if you need any further assistance.

 

Thank you

~ Bojan
Upwork

View solution in original post

16 REPLIES 16
BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Andrei,

 

As a non-exclusive member of an Agency, you're able to Change Default Team. After changing it, the offers will not be accepted under the Agency by default.

 

Let us know if you need any further assistance.

 

Thank you

~ Bojan
Upwork
aralko1
Community Member

Bojan, thanks! - you absolutely right. After I removed the Default Team all contracts are automatically accepted by me as individual freelancer. From one side it solved my problem, but from another I still do not see possiblity on how to manage whether execute the project as individial freelancer or as agency... It looks like the only way - change Default Team setting before asking the client to send me a contract?? - Upwork UI and logic looks strange here...

g_vasilevski
Retired Team Member
Retired Team Member

Hi Andrei,

 

When you`re applying on jobs you will see a pop asking you if you would like to apply as an independent freelancer or under the agency. If your client sends a contract it will be formed on your profile or the agency (depends on the option you`ve chosen when you have submitted your proposal).

Also when clients are inviting you to a job, if they would like to invite the agency they can open the agency profile and click on the green button "Invite to Job".
To learn more about agency proposals and offers, check out this Help Article. If you`re still confused about something, let me know. Thank you.

~ Goran
Upwork

thanks Goran for the clarification! - yes, it's clear in case if contract sent in reply to the proposal (yes, I could choose to send proposal from agency or from individual freelancer).

My question was related to another use case: when customer already knows me (for example, we had previously accomplished projects) and want to send a new contract directly to me without issuing a proposal. In this case customer goes to my profile and clicks Hire button. But in this scenario there is no choice for customer to assign a new contract to agency or to individual freelancer. Also it's not possible to manage on my side as well - contract seems to be automatically assigned just based on the Default Team setting without possibility to change this...

g_vasilevski
Retired Team Member
Retired Team Member

Hi Andrei,

 

Clients can invite the agency to apply on their job posting directly from the agency profile. Also, they can send a contract to the team member they would like. When a client hires an agency member, the agency will be notified of each action taken. Thank you.

~ Goran
Upwork

yes, but direct hiring without job posting via Hire button on freelancer profile does not provide possibility to choose between individual freelancer and agency at any stage - and I think that this is a problem

VladimirG
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Andrei,

 

Thanks for clarifying, I sent you a private message and would like to ask you to follow up on it so I could take a closer look into the process you reported. Thanks!

~ Vladimir
Upwork
VladimirG
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Andrei,

 

I'd like to confirm that if an offer is sent without a proposal being submitted first, the freelancer won't have an option to accept it either under their Agency or Freelancer profile by design. If a freelancer is set as an exclusive agency member or are non-exclusive and have their default team set to the agency, the offer will go to their Agency profile. 

 

In your case, since this is a client you have been working with for what sounds like a longer period of time, you can communicate with them and make sure to update the default team setting before receiving a new offer, to ensure that you can accept it and create a contract under the profile you prefer.

 

We have shared your experience with our Product team for further consideration, thanks for sharing your feedback in the Community.

~ Vladimir
Upwork

Thank you Vladimir. The situation is completely clear for me now.

Can you please clarify the solution to this for me?  I am experiencing the same frustrating dilemma and it feels like a programming loop. Just to clarify,  I want to send a new job offer to a freelancer I have worked with in the past but he would now like us to hire him through his Agency but when I click to hire him within the Agency profile as well as through his messages in Upwork,  it always sends the offer to his personal Freelance account.  

 **Edited for Community Guidelines**

Hi Randi,

I think the freelancer whom you are trying to hire has by default selected his team as Freelancer. It needs to be switched to different by freelancer from his profile. There should be an option to change default Team.

Here is a catch, if your freelancer can't find the way in settings to changed `Default Team` to Agency one then he would need to contact upwork support as it might be due to a bug that the default team is either invisible or uneditable.

My case was opposite i.e. my `default team` was selected as Agency which I changed to `personal` after contacting upwork support team as I was unable to edit the default team. Once I raised the ticket they fixed the issue within a day.

Good luck.

Hi Randi,

I`m sorry about the inconvenience this had caused you. Our team is checking this from our end as we speak and one of our team members will reach out to you via ticket and email to assist you further. Thank you.

~ Goran
Upwork

check the conversation below - in your case freelancer need to change his default team to agency (not freelancer)

Dear Bojan,

I am having exact same issue as Andrei mentioned. I am owner of the agency (specified as Non-exclusive Freelancer of the agency). 

However, when I tried to go to my `Change Default Team`, there is nothing to change. All fields are read only and no updates on default team is displayed. In fact, I am not seeing any editable field to change a default team.

Would you please go through my profile and check what might be the issue. Kindly let me know if you need further details for inspection.

I am keenly waiting to hear any solution on this.

Sincerely,
Rajan M

Hi Rajan,

 

Our team reached out to you via ticket to assist you further. If you have any additional questions for us (moderators), let us know. Thank you.

~ Goran
Upwork

Thank you Goran for the prompt response. Yes I have received the ticket response regarding my issue and will follow up the same.

Thank you again for your time and support.

Regards,
Rajan M

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