Staffing agency operations: how outbound POs gate every billable hour

If you run a staffing agency, you already know the operational reality: every billable hour from a contractor needs to be authorized in advance, billed at the right rate, and reconciled against an end-client engagement. When that authorization lives in spreadsheets and emails, contractors log hours nobody approved, agencies bill rates the end client never signed off on, and reconciliation at month-end becomes archaeology. TimeTrack Pro's outbound PO system makes the authorization the **gate**, not the paperwork. ## The model in one paragraph For each contractor placement, the firm issues an outbound PO that specifies: - **Contractor** (vendor admin or vendor member of the agency) - **End client + optional project** - **Period** (start + end dates) - **Rates** — straight-time and overtime - **Optional caps** on hours or dollar amount - **Billing cadence** — weekly, monthly, or on-demand The PO goes through a bilateral acceptance flow: vendor admin reviews and signs, the firm countersigns. Until that countersignature lands, the contractor literally cannot log time on that engagement. The runtime guard returns an error explaining what's missing. ## What the gate prevents **No PO yet?** Time entry blocked at the cell — "This engagement isn't authorized for billing yet." **PO past its end date?** Same block. The contractor sees they need an extension before they can log this week. **Wrong project?** Time entry blocked. POs scope to a specific client + project (or client-wide if the agency works across multiple projects under one client). **Over the hours cap?** Vendor admin sees a warning at 80% utilization, a hard limit at 100% (configurable). Same for dollar caps. ## What flows downstream automatically Once a contractor logs hours under a countersigned PO: 1. **Vendor admin uses Team Week** — a single flat table across all their contractors. Submit weekly for firm-side approval. 2. **Vendor invoices generate from approved hours** — straight-time + overtime split per week, rates inherited from the PO, no manual rate lookup. 3. **Firm AP queue reviews + approves** — discount, reject, or pass through. Multi-invoice payment allocations supported when one bank payment clears several invoices. 4. **End client invoices generate per billing cycle** — weekly / biweekly / monthly per the client's rules. OT multiplier applied per the client agreement. Inbound POs (the ones the end client issues you) match automatically and split if the period crosses a PO boundary. 5. **Bank Sync auto-reconciles** — Plaid pulls deposits, matches inflows to AR invoices and outflows to vendor payments via a 5-rule auto-matcher. The whole pipeline runs without anyone re-typing rates, dates, or contractor names. The PO is the source of truth. ## What about 1099 contractors paid directly The same model works for solo 1099 contractors with no agency in between. Use the "Onboard 1099 Contractor" wizard: - **SSN sole-prop** → role `contractor_1099`, surfaces under People not Vendors, single-person vendor wrapper for 1099-NEC reporting - **EIN single-member LLC** → role `vendor_admin` (the LLC is the business entity), surfaces under Vendors, same single-person wrapper Either way, the same outbound PO authorizes their hours. Year-end 1099 totals roll up from `vendor_payments` grouped by SSN tax-ID type. ## The 30-second pitch If your operations rely on email threads to track who's authorized to bill what, you're one personnel change away from a reconciliation problem. Codifying the authorization as a PO that gates the time-entry surface eliminates the entire class of "we billed time nobody approved" issues. Try the [live demo](https://ttp-demo.quantumitpartners.com) — the seed data has 3 staffing agencies with 5 contractors split across overlapping engagements, so you can walk the full firm → vendor → end-client cycle in about 5 minutes.