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ktufail
Community Member

How to assign contract to your agency freelancers?

How can I assign a contract won by my agency to an agency freelancer? How does this work? 

 

Where can I have a complete guide on how agencies work?

ACCEPTED SOLUTION

That's correct, Kashif. Once the client hires a freelancer under an agency, the payment for the work done by the freelancer goes to the agency's account. Agency owner is then responsible for paying the freelancer.

~ Valeria
Upwork

View solution in original post

21 REPLIES 21
kochubei_valeria
Community Member

Hi Kashif,

 

As an agency owner or business manager you can send proposals on behalf of your agency freelancers. The client will then send an offer to that freelancer through the agency. You'll also be able to accept of decline offers on behalf of that freelancer. Check out this help article for more information about running agencies.

~ Valeria
Upwork

Hi Valerie, 

 

What if I have won a contract on my agency and now want to assign it to a suitable freelancer? In my case, client simply hired my agency and not a specific freelancer. 

 

Please advise. 

 

Thanks. 

Kashif, you won't be able to re-assign a contract for which you have already accepted the offer yourself. You are the freelancer the client has hired for the contract. 

~ Valeria
Upwork

So, the client needs to hire the freelancer specifically and the time logged by that freelancer will be agency's earnings. Correct?

That's correct, Kashif. Once the client hires a freelancer under an agency, the payment for the work done by the freelancer goes to the agency's account. Agency owner is then responsible for paying the freelancer.

~ Valeria
Upwork

Hi Valeria, I do have one question. 

 

If I'm the owner of an agency and negotiate a price for a project. Will the final price visible to the freelancer? 

 

Thank you.

g_vasilevski
Retired Team Member
Retired Team Member

Hi Mario,

Your team members can see reports about their own work, but can't see their rates on their reports or contracts.
To learn more about managing an agency visit this Help Article.

~ Goran
Upwork
juju80
Community Member

And How I help a client to make a contract with a specific freelancer? Is there a link I can share or the freelancer? how can I be sure they make the  contract through the agency if I contact freelancer and client?

I just opened the agency and It´s confusing.

Is it possible to have an hourly rate job that all the agency can log and work in ? Or each freelancer needs a contract? This is the main reason why i changed to agency and hope this features are included.

 

Hi Julieta,

 

You can send the link to the freelancer's profile to the client and they can send the direct offer to them. Here is how. If the freelancer is an exclusive member of the agency or has agency set as their default team under Settings> Teams, the contract will be created under the agency once the accept that offer. Business Manager of the agency, will be able to check and manage the contract. However, only the freelancer hired on that specific hourly contract can log time on it. Other users can't directly log into the freelancer's account and log time.

 

Please, check this help article for more information about how agencies work.

~ Valeria
Upwork

Hey Valeria, 

 

I have the same question as Julieta. I now have a job and a freelancer who is able to do this job. However, I don't know how to assign this job to this specific client. If I would just send the client the link of the freelancer, the job would not be done under the agency anymore, right?

 

Thanks in advance. 

Hi Isabel,

 

Agency owner or business manager you can send proposals on behalf of your agency freelancers. The client will then send an offer to that freelancer through the agency. You'll also be able to accept or decline offers on behalf of that freelancer. Check out this help article for more information about running agencies.

Also, as Valeria already explained, If the freelancer you are referring to is an exclusive member of the agency or has the agency set as their default team under Settings> Teams, the contract will be created under the agency once they accept that offer. Please, check this help article for more information about how agencies work.

 

~ Bojan
Upwork

So what would be the benefit for the freelancer to make the contract through the agency. I don't have exclusive freelancers in my agency and that's not my goal. And cooperative clock is not included for contracts. So I don't understand what is the difference of an agency features.
BojanS
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Julieta,

 

Many teams of freelancers prefer working through agencies because it allows them to delegate certain responsibilities, such as managing finances and reporting, communication or bidding to an agency business manager and admins.

~ Bojan
Upwork

I have a follow on question related to this subject.

I have an Agency and I have been hired to do a job through my Agency. Now, my client is requesting work that is better suited for one of my freelancers who is an Agency Freelancer and is on the Agency Roster.

 

How do I assign the Agency Freelancer to do the work for the Agency?

AveryO
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Robert, 


Here are some ways that your agency freelancer can work for this project with your existing client:

  • On the client's job post, you can send a proposal to the job post on behalf of the freelancer, and the client can hire the agency freelancer from there;
  • If the client's job post is already closed, the client can create a new job post, and you can apply on behalf of the freelancer from there; 
  • If the freelancer is non-exclusive agency freelancer, he/she may apply to the job post link as an agency freelancer.

For your next question, you can run your agency as a Development shop. Provided that -

  • you will inform the client that different team members will be working on the contract, making sure that the client is aware of this arrangement;
  • for hourly contracts, you are the sole person who will log time on the hourly contract.

If you are foreseeing a setup where you will be working on the project as a team, it would be best that you setup a fixed-price contract with the client. This is so that you can refrain from having other members of your team log time on your hourly contract, as this is a violation of the Upwork Terms of Service.


~ Avery
Upwork

Hello,

 

I'm reading this thread with great interest, as I just opened an Agency, thinking it would work--as some Upwork articles I read--like a traditional business. But if I am correct (and I am not sure that I am) Upwork agencies are not like traditional businesses, at least not IT businesses, where a client hires a company and an agency manager farms out the tasks needed to a team. Instead, Upwork agencies are more like Talent Agencies, where an agent brings a potential actor to a movie production company or a promising athlete to a professional sports team to be hired. If so, despite claims to the contrary, Upwork Agencies are not really meant for team work in the execution of contracts, just like Talent Agencies are not promoting team work. That seems to be a conclusion to be drawn from this thread.

 

Considering that, I have a question for you, Avery. So I apply for a job on behalf of one of the freelancers in my agency. Suppose that the client is interested and sends the offer to the freelancer. What is keeping the freelancer, who is a non-exclusive member of the agency, to apply and accept that job outside of the agency? In effect, my effort in applying for jobs and nurturing relationships with clients can quickly come undone if those freelancers take the jobs I work to promote for the agency and accept them outside the agency. 

 

Am I correct in my assumptions above, that an agency is not to promote team work on behalf of clients, and that a non-exclusive freelancer can sidestep the agency when offered a job?

 

I want to find the best way to run my agency, but a number of blog posts and webinars never clarifed these crucial points. So your clarity would help a lot and would be most appreciated.

 

Thanks.

After months of running an Upwork agency, I became convinced that what I described back in August 2019 about an agency being nothing more than an organization similar to a Talent Agency was in fact the case. Sadly, I closed the agency. When they start a different model, more like a tech company would, then I'd be interested. 

And here I am in 2021, 2 years later having the same expectations started my agency and even paid a fee for Agency Plus. And finding out the same. If I had only read this thread a month earlier. We're Okay if Upwork doesn't want to introduce a more traditional company method but they should at least be civil enough to guide a newcomer in the right direction and let him know what he is signing up for.

Even after that, they should at least be responsible enough to reply to your comment.

Heavily disappointed.

 

If I can't assign a simple task/contract to any of my members at will, I have no idea what is the point of me being the Agency Owner or so-called "Business Manager".

If two of my Agency Members can not work on a single project together (log hours), I simply can't understand what the Upwork Copywriters mean by "Collaboration", "Team Work", "Multi-Disciplinary Freelancers Getting Together".

If a client hires a single freelancer and only that freelancer, I no longer see a point in having an Upwork Agency.

So, what you are saying is that I can't run the Agency like a Development shop, where I contract with a client to do a series of tasks and once hired, farm out that work to my team.

 

If this is the case, what advantage is there to having or being a part of an Agency? If the client hires each Freelancer individually...

 

 

Hi Valeria Why is it that  I can only send proposals on Behalf of  only 2 memebers of my agency account. I can't send a proposal on behalf of **Edited for Community Guidelines** . Please help I already paid $20 for my agency account 

Hello, I hope you're still active. If I send my agency member's Upwork profile link to my client, will they be able to see the current rate of my member on their freelancer's profile? If yes, is there another way I can delegate tasks to my member once the client has hired my agency? I am not comfortable with the idea that my member can see the rate that the client and I have agreed upon, and I also don't want the client to see the rate on my member's profile. I hope you understand.

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