Three fee models, with a floor
Percentage of annual salary, flat fee, or a multiple of the weekly wage, with a minimum applied automatically and flagged when it bites.
Placement agency software
Software for agencies that place people, not hours
Placement fees, minimums and replacement guarantees, modelled properly. And hourly bookings in the same system, for the temp work that pays between placements.
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A placement agency is paid once and stays liable for months. The fee is a percentage, a flat rate or a multiple of a weekly wage; underneath it sits a minimum that decides which searches are worth taking; and behind it sits a replacement guarantee that almost nobody has ever costed. Rostavo holds all of it on one record, from the day the search opens to the day the guarantee runs out, and tells you at the end of the year what that guarantee was actually worth.
What that looks like in practice
Guarantees that count themselves
Tracked from the real start date, with days remaining on every live placement and a free replacement opened in one click when one fails.
What your guarantee costs
The proportion of placements that fail inside the window, what they cost in re-searches, and how long placements last in the bands a tiered fee is priced against.
Placements and bookings together
The same candidates and clients cover permanent hires and temporary work, so the temp cover between placements is not a second system.
A fill rate that includes the misses
Counted across every search that concluded, not just the ones that paid, because the ones that did not are what your real rate per hour is set by.
The fee out as an invoice
One line with the arithmetic spelled out, paid by card or bank transfer, and exported into Xero or QuickBooks with everything else.
Plus everything else the agency runs on
Every agency gets the whole system, at one price, with nothing held back for a dearer plan.
Scheduling & dispatch
Fill an open shift fast
AI-assisted best match
GPS check-in / out
Checks & documents
Invoicing & payments
Worker payouts
Permanent placements
Accounting & payroll export
Your own job board
Prepaid hour packages
Visit reports with photos
Expenses, profit and margin
Time off requests
Training records
Import your own data
What needs you today
Real-time chat
Client & worker portals
Ratings & reviews
Recruiting pipeline
One system, every vertical
Everyone sees just their bit
One set of records, three ways in. Nobody has to be taught which parts to ignore.
You and your coordinators
The whole agency. Every booking, everyone on your books, the money in and out, and what needs sorting today.
Your team
Their own work and nothing else. They accept a job, check in, upload a certificate and see what they are owed.
Your clients
Their own account only. They request, see who is coming, pay a bill and leave a review.
A placement agency is paid once and liable for months
Which is a different business from one that bills by the hour, and almost no software models it.
Week one
A family engages you
The search starts. Nothing is written down anywhere central yet, because there is nothing to bill.
Week six
Somebody starts
The fee goes out. This is the only moment most systems can see, and it is the middle of the story rather than the end.
Week fourteen
They hand in their notice
Inside your guarantee. You go again for nothing, and the only record of why is in somebody's inbox.
The placement, from engagement to the end of the guarantee
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01
A placement opens when the search does
Not when it fills. The searches that went nowhere are what your real rate per hour is set by, and they are invisible if you only record the ones that paid.
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02
The fee is calculated, not typed
A percentage of the annual salary, a flat fee, or a multiple of the weekly wage, with a minimum underneath it. The sum is shown, so you can check it rather than trust it.
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03
The minimum does its job
A search costs you the same whether the role pays 28,000 or 80,000. The floor is what stops part-time work quietly becoming the work you do for free.
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04
The guarantee counts itself down
From the real start date. You can see which placements are still inside the window without subtracting two dates in your head.
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05
Ending a placement asks why
Every time. It is the one field you cannot reconstruct later, and the only input that lets you price a guarantee instead of guessing at it.
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06
A failed placement opens a free replacement
Linked to the original, carrying no fee. That is what the guarantee costs, and now it is a number rather than a feeling.
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07
The fee becomes an invoice
One line, with the sum spelled out, paid by card or bank transfer like any other.
What to look for in placement agency software
Does it model a placement at all, or only a booking?
Most in-home software is built around an hour of work. If a placement has to be entered as a booking, the fee, the start date and the guarantee have nowhere to live.
Ask them: Can I record a one-off fee against a hire, separately from scheduled hours?
Can it do all three fee models?
Percentage, flat and a multiple of the weekly salary are all in common use, and most agencies run more than one depending on the role.
Ask them: Can different placements charge differently without a spreadsheet beside the system?
Is there a minimum fee, and does it apply automatically?
This is the number that decides whether you can afford to serve the bottom half of your market, and it is the one agencies most often leave out.
Ask them: Does it apply the floor for me, and tell me when it did?
Does it track the guarantee, and what it costs?
Nearly every agency offers a free replacement. Almost none has costed it, which is why most price the guarantee on instinct. The better agencies tier their fee against it.
Ask them: Can I see what proportion of my placements fail inside the window, and what that cost me?
Does it ask why a placement ended?
Without the reason you know your failure rate and nothing you can act on. "The family moved abroad" and "they were not up to it" are the same row until somebody writes down which.
Ask them: Is the reason a required field or an optional note?
Can the same system also do temporary cover?
Temp is the only recurring revenue in the placement model, and running it in a second system is how agencies end up with two versions of the same client.
Ask them: Can one person hold a permanent placement and a week of cover?
Questions answered
Can I charge a percentage on some placements and a flat fee on others?
Yes. Each placement carries its own model: a percentage of the gross annual salary, a flat fee, or a multiple of the weekly salary. You can set a minimum on the first and third, and it is applied for you when the calculated fee falls below it.
How does the replacement guarantee work?
You set the length in days on the placement, and it is counted from the first day worked rather than from when you created the record. While a placement is live you can see how many days are left on it. If it ends inside the window for a reason that counts against you, Rostavo can open a linked replacement search that carries no fee.
Can I see what my guarantee is actually costing me?
Yes, and it is the point. The placements screen reports how many placements with a guarantee have ended, how many of those failed inside it, what those re-searches cost at the fee they were charged at, and how long placements lasted across the bands a tiered fee is set against. Several agencies charge 15% for 90 days and 20% for 180; this is the figure that lets you price that rather than guess.
Does a completed fixed term count as a failed placement?
No. A term finishing as agreed, or a client withdrawing the role, are excluded from the guarantee figures, so a fixed-term agency does not look like it is failing when it is doing exactly what it was engaged to do.
Can I still run hourly bookings?
Yes, and most placement agencies do. Temporary cover is the only recurring revenue in the placement model. Bookings, rates, timesheets and invoicing all work as normal alongside placements, on the same people.
What if I do not offer a guarantee?
Leave the field empty and nothing is counted. The fee, the dates and the reason a placement ended are still recorded, which is most of the value.
Related
The same system, described for a different trade or a different question.
By what you need it to do
Missing something you need?
Every agency runs a little differently. If something here doesn't fit how you work, or there's a piece missing altogether, tell us. We build custom versions of Rostavo for individual agencies.
That might be a form that matches your paperwork, a rate rule nobody else uses, a report your accountant asks for, or a whole part of the job we haven't covered. Worth a conversation either way.
Tell us what you need
We read every one of these ourselves.
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