Recruitment Agency Timesheet Software Compared
Recruitment and staffing agency timesheet software compared on pay and bill, client invoicing, and price, plus why UK and US searches differ.
Recruitment Agency Timesheet Software
Why the same search returns British and American tools, what pay and bill actually means, and which of nine products fit an agency placing workers rather than hiring them
Search for recruitment agency timesheet software and you get British products. Search for staffing agency timesheet software, which sounds like the same request, and you get American ones. Search for agency timesheet software without either qualifier and you get tools built for marketing studios billing client hours.
That is not a quirk of the search engine. It reflects a real split in the market, and it is the first thing worth understanding before shortlisting anything, because a US agency that shortlists from the British results will spend a demo cycle on platforms built around off-payroll working rules it will never encounter.
Underneath the terminology there is one genuine category: software that collects hours from placed workers, gets those hours approved by someone at the client site, and then pays the worker and bills the client from the same record. This comparison covers what that requires, which of nine products do it, and where the cheaper general-purpose tools stop.
Why this search returns two different categories
Two distinct kinds of business track hours and both call the result a timesheet, which is why the results blur.
| Question | Agency placing workers | Employer hiring staff |
|---|---|---|
| Who the worker is | A temp or contractor placed at a client site | An employee on your own payroll |
| Why hours are tracked | To pay the worker and invoice the client | To pay the worker and meet wage and hour rules |
| Who approves the hours | A manager at the client company | A manager inside your own company |
| What the hours produce | A pay run and a client invoice with a margin | A pay run only |
| What the software is | Agency back office, pay and bill | Time and attendance, or HR with time tracking |
| Typical pricing unit | Per placed worker or per agency seat | Per employee or a flat platform fee |
The distinction that matters is in the fourth row. An employer tracking its own staff needs the hours to reach payroll correctly and to satisfy wage and hour recordkeeping. An agency needs the same thing plus an invoice, and the invoice has to carry a different rate than the payment, against the same hours, for the same worker, at a specific client.
What pay and bill actually means
Every vendor in this space uses the phrase and few explain it, so here is the mechanic in plain terms.
| Step | What happens | Where it breaks |
|---|---|---|
| Placement setup | Worker assigned to a client with a pay rate and a bill rate | Rates stored on the worker rather than the placement |
| Hours captured | Worker submits hours, usually from a phone at the site | Paper or text-message submission that nobody can audit |
| Client approval | A manager at the client company approves the hours | The client will not log in, so someone chases by email |
| Pay run | Approved hours produce a payment at the pay rate | Overtime thresholds applied inconsistently across clients |
| Invoice | The same hours produce an invoice at the bill rate | Invoice built by hand in accounting software from an export |
| Margin visible | The difference is the agency margin on that placement | Margin only knowable at month end, not per placement |
The third row is where agencies actually lose time. A client-side approval step that the client finds annoying will be skipped, and skipped approvals mean either delayed invoicing or invoicing hours nobody signed off on. Whichever product you pick, the approval experience for the client manager matters more than any feature aimed at your own team.
Recruitment agency, staffing agency, and why the words matter
The two phrases describe the same business and belong to different markets. This is not pedantry, because the compliance features built into each product follow the market it was built for.
| Term | Primary market | Vendors you will find | Compliance context |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recruitment agency | UK, Ireland, Australia, India | Timesheet Portal and ETZ | IR35 status, AWR parity, HMRC reporting |
| Staffing agency | United States and Canada | Avionte, TempWorks, WurkNow, Bullhorn | Multi-state tax, ACA tracking, I-9 per placement |
| Labour hire | Australia and New Zealand | Regional platforms and local vendors | State labour hire licensing schemes |
| Agency, unqualified | Mixed and ambiguous | Creative and marketing time trackers | Billable client hours, not placed workers |
For a US agency the practical consequence is specific. Platforms built for the British market handle off-payroll working status determinations and agency worker parity rules, neither of which exists in US law, and they may not handle registration for withholding in multiple states, which is a routine requirement the moment an agency places a worker across a state line. The reverse applies to a UK agency evaluating American platforms.
9 agency timesheet products compared
Seven products built for agencies plus two general workforce tools, included because agencies genuinely evaluate them on price and deserve a clear answer about where they stop.
| Product | Best For | Entry Price | Timesheets | Client Invoicing | Pay and Bill | Placement Records | Trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bullhorn Time & Expense | Agencies already on Bullhorn ATS | Quote | Demo | ||||
| Avionte | Established US staffing firms | Quote | Demo | ||||
| TempWorks | US agencies wanting one system | Quote | Demo | ||||
| WurkNow | Light industrial and warehouse | Quote | Demo | ||||
| Zoho Workerly | Small temp desks on a budget | $59/mo | Free tier | ||||
| Timesheet Portal | Pay and bill without a full ATS | Modular | Demo | ||||
| ETZ | Agencies wanting per-head pricing | Per head | Demo | ||||
| Deputy | Shift scheduling, not agency billing | $5/user | Free trial | ||||
| ClockShark | Field crews with GPS requirements | $40 + $9/user | 14-day trial |
Bullhorn Time and Expense
The time and expense module attached to the most widely used applicant tracking and CRM system in staffing. Time capture, timesheet management, expense handling, and approval routing all sit inside the same record as the placement, which is the argument for it: no synchronization between the system that made the placement and the system that bills for it.
Pricing is quoted rather than published, the module sits on top of a platform license that itself starts around $99 per user per month at the entry tier, and implementation is a separate line. Reports consistently describe this as an ecosystem commitment rather than a product purchase.
Avionte
A full staffing platform covering applicant tracking, payroll, billing, and timesheets, built for the North American market and used by a large base of established US and Canadian staffing firms. The appeal is completeness: an agency running Avionte is not assembling a stack.
TempWorks
A long-established US staffing platform spanning applicant tracking, CRM, time management, billing, and payroll. Like Avionte it is aimed at agencies that want one vendor for the whole operation rather than a timesheet tool bolted to an ATS.
WurkNow
A newer US platform aimed at light industrial and warehouse staffing, where the operational pattern is high volume, short assignments, and shift-based work. Time tracking, payroll, and applicant tracking are bundled, with the workforce-facing experience built around mobile.
Zoho Workerly
The only product here with genuinely accessible published pricing: a free tier covering five temps and two active jobs, and a Basic plan at $59 per month starting at a minimum of 25 temps, with per-temp rates falling as volume grows. Scheduling, electronic timesheets, approval routing, and invoicing sit in one interface, with integration into the wider Zoho accounting products.
For a small temp desk moving off spreadsheets, this is the shortest path from scheduled shift to approved hours to invoice, and the free tier makes evaluation genuinely risk-free.
Timesheet Portal
A pay and bill specialist rather than a full agency platform, built for the British market and used by recruitment and project-based agencies that want tight control over the timesheet-to-invoice path without buying an applicant tracking system they do not need. Pricing is modular, charged for the components an agency actually uses.
ETZ
Another British specialist, distinguished by charging per processed timesheet or per head rather than per agency seat, on a month-to-month basis. For an agency whose worker count fluctuates seasonally, a unit that tracks placement volume rather than office headcount can align cost with revenue more closely than a seat licence does.
Deputy
A general workforce management tool for scheduling and time tracking, at $5 per user per month on Lite, $6.50 on Core, and $9 on Pro, with a monthly minimum spend. Included here because agencies evaluate it and the honest answer is that it does one half of the job very well and the other half not at all.
It will schedule shifts, capture clock-ins, and export to payroll. It will not hold a bill rate, produce a client invoice, or record which client account a shift belonged to in a billable sense.
ClockShark
Field-focused time tracking built for construction and trades, at $40 per month plus $9 per active user on Standard and $60 plus $11 on Pro. The relevance to agencies is narrow but real: an agency placing crews at physical job sites where location verification matters gets GPS-stamped time capture that general office tools do not offer.
Why pricing in this category is hard to compare
Most comparison content in this space presents a price column and moves on. That column is close to meaningless here, for two reasons worth stating plainly.
| Pricing unit | What it means | Who it favors |
|---|---|---|
| Per agency seat | You pay for recruiters and back-office staff | Agencies with many placements and few internal staff |
| Per placed worker | You pay for each temp or contractor on assignment | Agencies with few placements and a larger internal team |
| Per timesheet processed | You pay by transaction volume | Agencies with seasonal or fluctuating placement volume |
| Modular | You pay per component used | Agencies needing only part of the platform |
| Quote only | No public rate at any tier | Nobody comparing options efficiently |
The first reason comparison fails is that these units are not convertible without knowing your specific ratio of internal staff to placed workers. An agency with four recruiters and two hundred placements and an agency with twenty recruiters and forty placements will rank these vendors in opposite orders, and neither ranking is wrong.
The second is implementation. Where platform licences are quoted, setup is quoted separately, and reports on the larger platforms describe implementation costs that can rival a year of licence fees for a small agency. Any comparison that omits implementation understates the first-year cost of exactly the products that are hardest to leave.
How to choose agency timesheet software
Before you choose
FirstHR does not do pay and bill. We do not invoice clients, hold bill rates against placements, or run timesheets for placed workers. Every product above does something we do not, and an agency shopping for the timesheet-to-invoice path should buy one of them.
There is a second population inside every agency that these platforms are not built for, and it is easy to overlook precisely because the agency spends its attention on placements.
| Population | Whose employee they are | Which system holds their record |
|---|---|---|
| Placed temps and contractors | The agency, in most US arrangements | The agency platform, by placement |
| Recruiters and account managers | The agency, directly | Generally nothing purpose-built |
| Back-office and payroll staff | The agency, directly | Generally nothing purpose-built |
| Branch managers and leadership | The agency, directly | Generally nothing purpose-built |
Rows two through four are the agency's own staff. They are hired, onboarded, issued handbooks and policy acknowledgments, given equipment, reviewed, and eventually offboarded, and none of that lives in a platform designed around client placements. In agencies under fifty internal staff this work typically sits in a folder and an inbox. FirstHR covers it with onboarding workflows, e-signature, document management with retention, training modules with completion tracking, and employee records, at a flat $98 to $198 per month for US teams of 5 to 50. We sit alongside an agency platform rather than replacing any part of it. Our comparison of payroll software for staffing agencies covers the adjacent question of running two payrolls, and our guide to contractor onboarding software covers the 1099 side.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is recruitment agency timesheet software?
Software that collects hours from workers placed at client sites, routes them for client approval, and then both pays the worker and invoices the client from the same approved record. The invoicing half is what separates it from ordinary time tracking, since the hours are the product the agency sells.
What does pay and bill mean?
Running both sides of a placement from one timesheet: the worker is paid their rate and the client is invoiced the bill rate, with the agency keeping the margin. The complexity comes from rates varying by placement, shift type, overtime threshold, and client contract terms.
Why do recruitment agency and staffing agency return different software?
Because the terms belong to different markets. Recruitment agency is standard in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia, and those results feature vendors built for those markets. Staffing agency is American phrasing and returns vendors built around US payroll and multi-state tax. The products are not interchangeable.
How much does agency timesheet software cost?
Most established platforms quote privately rather than publishing rates. Where pricing is public the unit varies: per agency seat, per placed worker, or per timesheet processed. Published examples run from a free tier for a handful of workers to well over $100 per seat monthly, with implementation quoted separately. See our payroll pricing guide for how comparable software models work.
Can a staffing agency use a general time tracking app instead?
For collecting hours yes, and far more cheaply. It will not produce a client invoice, hold separate pay and bill rates against a placement, or record the client assignment in a billable sense. Agencies do export hours and invoice in accounting software, which works until reconciliation becomes its own job.
Do agency workers count as employees of the agency?
Often yes in US staffing, where the agency is frequently the employer of record and handles payroll, withholding, workers compensation, and the I-9. Other arrangements treat the worker as an independent contractor, which changes the tax treatment and carries misclassification risk. Our guide to worker misclassification covers the analysis.
What is the difference between timesheet software and time and attendance software?
Timesheet software records blocks of time against a placement for billing purposes. Time and attendance software records when an employee started and stopped for pay and compliance purposes, with recordkeeping obligations under the Fair Labor Standards Act attached. An agency employing its own temps needs both.
What should an agency look for in timesheet software?
Client approval workflow the client will actually use, pay and bill rates held at the placement rather than the worker, direct output to both payroll and invoicing without re-keying, and a worker-facing mobile experience. Everything beyond those four is preference rather than requirement.
Does agency timesheet software handle onboarding for placed workers?
Some larger platforms do, since agencies onboard continuously and at volume. What they generally do not cover is the agency's own internal staff, who are a separate population with separate paperwork and typically sit outside the placement system entirely. See our guide to new hire paperwork for what that file should contain.