Letting the Client Own the Workplace

An agency doesn't have to be the one running the show - the client can own the workplace instead, with the agency slotted in as the processor.

The usual setup has the agency create the workplace: the agency invites senders, sets up assignments, and puts its own people forward as approvers and processors, with clients recorded underneath as just names to bill.

That's not the only way to arrange it. A workplace is just the primary security and administration boundary in Zipwire - whoever creates it is the one who can create assignments, invite people, and see everything. There's nothing stopping the client from being that party instead of the agency.

Why you'd do this

• The client wants direct visibility and control over the record of work, rather than seeing it second-hand through whatever the agency chooses to share.

• The agency is being brought in purely as a payments/processing service - getting contractors paid and invoices settled - rather than as the party that owns the working relationship.

• The client already runs several contractors directly and just wants one agency to handle the processing side for all of them, without handing over administration of the workplace itself.

How it's set up

• The client creates the workplace, rather than the agency.

• The client adds the sender (the contractor) directly to an assignment - there's no need for the agency to sit between the client and the sender at all.

• Instead of putting its own staff forward as approver and processor, the client invites the agency's team in as the processor (and, if it suits, the approver too).

• The client's own people can still hold the approver role themselves, using the agency purely to process payment and invoicing - or they can hand off both roles to the agency and just keep an eye on things.

The sender → approver → processor chain doesn't change. What changes is who owns the workplace the chain lives inside, and therefore who's ultimately in control of it.

Because a sender's Zipwire login belongs to them, not to whoever set up the workplace, none of this affects the sender's side of things. They see the same journal and the same timesheet either way, regardless of whether the client or the agency is the one running the workplace.

WorkplacesProcessors