Contract, where a placement is the start of the relationship.
Rates, extensions, compliance and the day someone becomes available again. Built for a book that keeps running.
Quick answer
Signals supports contract recruitment as an applicant tracking system and CRM in one, covering live placements as well as the pipeline. It holds pay and charge rates and the margin they imply, captures and approves time, tracks extensions, end dates and compliance expiry, and shows when a contractor becomes available again. Invoicing, payment and payroll belong to a finance system.
A contract desk in one paragraph
A contract book is never finished. Every person you have out is a placement, a clock and a candidate at the same time. The extension conversation only works if it happens before the client has started thinking about it, the compliance document expires whether or not anyone is watching, and the best candidate for next month’s role is usually someone already working for you. A system that files a placement as complete has stopped being useful on the day it mattered most. It is the same record everyone else works from in one workspace.
What makes this desk hard
Extensions get discussed too late.
The conversation that keeps a contractor out has to happen weeks before the end date. Leave it to the last fortnight and you are negotiating against a client who has already started planning without you.
A live book is easy to lose track of.
Twenty people out, twenty end dates, twenty sets of documents with their own expiry. It works until one is missed, and then it is a compliance problem rather than an admin one.
Availability is the most valuable thing you know, and the hardest to keep current.
Someone coming free in three weeks is your best candidate for a role you have not been briefed on yet. That fact has a short shelf life and usually lives in one recruiter’s head.
Margin gets squeezed one conversation at a time.
A client asks for a rate reduction at extension, the contractor asks for an uplift, and both are reasonable. No system decides this for you. It is a negotiation, and it is yours.
What Signals does about each
Extensions surface early.
An approaching end date becomes a live action while there is still time to have the conversation properly, not a reminder in the final week. See what to do next.
The whole book in one place.
Everyone out, their end dates, their documents and when each expires. Live placements are open records, not filed ones. See manager view.
Availability as a live state.
When a contractor is coming free, and on what date, is on their record and searchable, so the person you already placed is the first candidate you see. See search in plain English.
Margin visible while you negotiate.
Pay rate, charge rate and the margin they imply, on the record, so a rate conversation happens with the number in front of you. Signals does not decide the number and it does not invoice it.
A live contract placement in Signals
Contract ends in 13 days. Sarah Chen has not been asked about a further three months.
Out, running, and already surfacing the extension conversation.
What is different for a contract desk
Rates as a structure. Pay rate and charge rate held together, with the margin they imply visible on the record rather than worked out separately.
Extensions as an action on a live placement. Not a new record and not a duplicate. The same placement continues, with its history intact.
Time captured and approved. Contractors submit, clients or managers approve, and approved time sits on the placement as evidence. It goes to your finance system from there.
End dates as a live surface. An approaching end is a thing to act on, not a date in a field.
Availability with a date. Not a flag saying available, but the day someone frees up, which is what makes redeployment possible.
Compliance with expiry. Right to work, visa status and certifications tracked with the date they lapse, so it surfaces before it becomes a problem.
Rate reviews mid contract. An uplift or a reduction is recorded against the placement, so the history of what was agreed and when is on the record.
Signals captures the time and holds the rates. Invoicing, payment and payroll belong to your finance system.
Common questions
Yes, it captures and approves time. Contractors submit time against a live placement, clients or managers approve it, and the approved record sits on the placement as evidence of what was worked. Approved time then passes to your finance system, which raises the invoice and makes payment.
No, deliberately not. Signals holds the rates agreed and the approved time, then passes both to your finance system. Invoicing, payment, payroll and reconciliation are finance work and stay with finance software built for it. The same boundary applies on a permanent desk, where fees are recorded and invoiced elsewhere.
Yes, on the record. Pay rate, charge rate and the margin those rates imply sit on the placement, so a rate conversation happens with the number in front of you rather than in a spreadsheet afterwards. Reconciled figures, once time is invoiced and paid, come from your finance system.
As an action on the live placement. The placement continues with its history intact rather than becoming a second record, and the approaching end date surfaces as a live action with time left to have the conversation. Rate changes agreed at extension are recorded against the same placement.
Yes, with dates. Right to work, visa status and certifications are held on the contractor record with the date each lapses, and an approaching expiry surfaces alongside the placement it affects. The document expires whether or not anyone is watching, so the date is the thing that is tracked.
Yes, one workspace. Permanent, contract and search desks share the same people, companies and history, so a contractor coming free is visible to the recruiter working a permanent role and a client relationship is one relationship. Each desk keeps the surfaces it needs.