What you'll see at month-end
- Per-consultant P&L - revenue, GP, net contribution after their salary and commission
- Per-client P&L - placements, fees billed, contractor margin (if pay-through-agency)
- Commission ledger - exactly who's owed what, with audit trail
- Contractor margin report - per-contractor margin, payroll cost, days worked, retention
- Pipeline-to-cash forecast - placements expected this quarter and the resulting cash flow
- 13-week cash forecast - especially relevant for agencies with significant pay-through-agency volumes (cash flow is lumpy)
How we run commission
Commission complexity catches generic accountants out. We've seen agency commission schemes with:
- Threshold-based tiers (you don't earn until you've billed £X)
- Retro adjustments (last quarter's tier applied retrospectively)
- Caps (commission stops at £Y of personal billing)
- Splits (consultant A introduces, consultant B closes; split varies)
- Bonus pool (top of the pyramid earns from team performance)
- Clawback (commission reversed if a placement falls inside the guarantee period)
We model your specific commission scheme in Xero (or Pry/Causal for more complex schemes), run the calc each pay period, and produce a clear per-consultant statement. Disputes drop sharply when consultants can see exactly how their commission was calculated.
Contractor pay-through-agency
If your agency pays contractors directly (rather than the client billing them), you're running a payroll operation:
- Weekly or fortnightly pay cycles
- Timesheet collection and approval workflow
- RTI submissions to HMRC
- Holiday pay calculation (12.07% accrual, or AWR-aligned)
- Apprenticeship Levy (above £3M payroll)
- Pension auto-enrolment
- P60s and P45s
This sits alongside the agency's own employee payroll. Different cycle, different reporting, different cash needs.
Frequently asked questions
How fast is monthly close?+
For mid-sized agencies, 5-7 business days after month-end is realistic and what we target. The bottleneck is usually CRM reconciliation - if your CRM data is dirty (placements without dates, fees without invoices), close is slower regardless of accountant capability.
Can you handle multi-currency?+
Yes - international placement fees, contractor pay in foreign currency, and overseas client invoicing all need clean treatment. Most UK agencies use GBP primary with USD/EUR overlays; we handle this in Xero with multi-currency.
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