For agencies🏢 Agency Management

Schedule contractors on purchased (bought) time

Buy blocks of a contractor's time, schedule them like staff during those windows, and pay per block instead of per job.

Purchased time is an optional add-on for agencies that buy chunks of a contractor's time up front. During a bought block the contractor is scheduled like a staff member, and instead of per-job pay, you pay one amount per block: the block's hours times a purchased-time rate. The add-on is enabled per agency by OneTerp; contact support to turn it on.

Step by step

  1. 1Once the add-on is enabled, go to Operations → Interpreters and open the contractor.
  2. 2In the Purchased Time card, turn on "Purchased time contractor" and set the purchased time rate ($/hr) you pay for their blocks.
  3. 3Open the Staff Schedule tab, the contractor now appears alongside your W-2 staff with a "Purchased time" badge.
  4. 4Draw their bought blocks just like staff shifts (recurring weekly or one-off dates), their bars show in violet instead of teal.
  5. 5On the dispatch board, violet "Purchased time" bands mark their bought windows, drop jobs into them like any assignment.
  6. 6When a block's day has passed, it appears in Billing → Payouts as a "Purchased time block" line (hours × rate) in the contractor's payout group, and is paid through your normal payout batches.

Tips

  • Jobs that fall fully inside a bought block pay the contractor nothing per-job, no service fee or travel, and show "Covered by purchased time" in billing. Out-of-pocket expenses are still reimbursed.
  • Jobs outside the bought windows (or only partially inside) pay like normal contractor jobs.
  • Customers are billed exactly the same either way, purchased time only changes what you pay the contractor.
  • If no purchased-time rate is set, blocks fall back to the contractor's base hourly rate.
  • Other agencies just see the contractor as busy during your bought blocks, they never see why.

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