Agency Time – Microsoft based ERP software solution for recruitment agencies

We created Agency Time back in 2001. Pippa Odell, a founding TVision director, had previously carried out a piece of consultancy to help a mid-sized recruitment agency with multiple locations solve their system issues. After much market research it was found there really wasn’t much out there to help organisations with the day to day work such as providing clients with invoices produced in particular formats, managing adjustments to timesheets or even carrying out the simple task of paying large volumes of contractors at the press of a button without the endless need for system backups.

This is one of the things that made Microsoft Dynamics NAV such a suitable platform for Agency Time as it is so robust. We have never needed to worry about NAV’s ability to cope with large volumes of data and customers can use clustering to ensure they have no “down time”.

Dynamics NAV – designed to be customised

Standard NAV would do little more than address financial requirements for recruitment companies. However, it is specially designed for resellers to customise the product. Microsoft encourages partners to work in this way as it means we can please more clients with industry specific solutions. So you can be confident that the product and the partner channel are all geared up and approved by Microsoft to support your solution.

To claim a vertical specialism in implementing software solutions we believe requires three elements: a product that fits, reference sites and most importantly consultants with specialist knowledge of that industry.

Creating the product, Agency Time, was relatively simple as Dynamics NAV already had the core components: accounts, credit control, resource journals for inputting time and expenses and local payrolls. We applied our knowledge of the requirements for pay/bill to configure the system to meet the needs of recruitment companies. We added a robust rate rules engine at the heart. And although the system is predominantly aimed at companies processing timesheets for temporary staff and contractors, we added functionality to meet the needs of permanent placements too.

Agency Time Software Functionality

Here’s what can Agency Time can do:

• Clients and Prospects can have unlimited contacts at different addresses, working in different languages and currencies; this means you can define the right contact for different projects and / or different elements of the project.
• Rates (costs and charges) can be set at agency, client, and contract level. Unlimited rules can be created via a rates rules wizard.
• Flexible Pay/Bill means you can bill before you pay; have a different bill frequency to pay frequency (invoice weekly, pay monthly could be achieved by the system, if only your clients would agree to it!), you can bill in one currency, pay in another; you can pull out expense lines to invoice separately, exclude expense information from margin reports; roll up invoices to a single line per client or detail out one timesheet / one invoice. All of this can be set by assignment.
• Temporary workers records, nominating pay frequency, managing deductions, to leavers and reinstatements.
• Invoices can be produced in various formats and distributed using various mediums e.g. paper, email, OB10.
• Your credit controllers can use the diary management, email out copy invoices, produce statement and reminder letters and have the ability to hold invoices and put clients on stop.
• Integrates with both Payroll and Purchase Ledger. Includes management of late/lost timesheets, managing timesheets adjustments and posting in correct periods with full audit trail.
• On line timesheet entry. Also bulk timesheet uploading and the ability to integrate with OCR technology (scanned timesheets).
• Dynamics NAV UK payroll module addresses all statutory deductions. Due to the global presence of Microsoft Dynamics NAV, we can source local payrolls for most major countries worldwide (typically where NAV has a strong presence, currently 120+ countries) and run multiple payrolls on the same database.
• Multiple payrolls can be managed for temps, perms and staff pay; with permissions to control which users have access to which payrolls.
• Handling fees, holidays and NI contributions calculated and adjusted as configured to your process.
• Permanent placements can be tracked ready to be invoiced on start date with automatic accrual functionality. You can also assign costs against the placement (e.g. advertising and expenses) and run a split fee calculation.
• External purchase invoices can be recorded against placements and ready to be re-invoiced to clients either individually or in batches e.g. plane fares.
• Reports can be run for any date-range, at any time and on all data processed in the system. Financial reports can be run for the particular data you want to track e.g. by consultant, sector, team, department, location etc.
• Multicurrency placements and invoicing on one customer account: You can invoice in one currency, pay in another and process expenses in a third, fourth or fifth etc all on the same project.
• Standard Microsoft web-tools provide secure portals for on-line timesheet entry and client ‘self-serve’ pages. The security and permissions can all be managed by the system.

Why buy Agency Time Recruitment Software?

Simply put because you are getting so much functionality and flexibility for your investment. Microsoft is fully committed to continued significant investment in the Dynamics NAV product and currently has a roadmap detailing planned development for the next 10 years. This means your business will always be able to benefit from advances in technology to keep your contractors and clients on side and keep costs down. Latest technology gives you the upper hand when bidding for new Preferred Supplier Agreements.

You will be able to see you financial position all within one system and you won’t have to send your users out to train with multiple software suppliers. Most users will be able to navigate around Dynamics NAV without any training as they already have so much exposure to working with other Microsoft Windows applications such as Excel, Word and Outlook.

Your contractors will notice how easily they are able to sort out queries with you and get their payments, and your clients will get the invoices with the information they need – perhaps a little faster than they wanted them. Your accounts team will stop relying on Excel spreadsheets to complete basic accounting tasks; the system is fully accredited by the ICAEW. Your management team will be enabled with instant access to real-time information. And lastly your bank manager will be amazed at just how much you were able to sales invoice in a day and how quickly the cash has started coming in.

Agency Time is loved by our clients in the recruitment industry because it really meets their business needs. This is possible because our experienced staff here at TVision have listened to the user requirements and configured the system to get the best possible fit. Clients regularly ask for us to help them when their businesses change, and it is a pleasure to be able to create new functionality to meet those needs whether it be adding an Australian payroll to a UK database or simply helping them open up a new company on the system.