Tuesday: two agency invoices land
Two agencies supplied people last week. Their invoices list names, shifts and hours, including overtime, night rates and a couple of people who were apparently in on Sunday. Your clocking system says something slightly different. The signing-in sheet at reception says something else, because the clocking terminal was down on Wednesday. A supervisor sent three people home early on Thursday when volumes dropped.
The finance person trying to check it has a spreadsheet, the clocking export and a folder of scanned sheets. It is a morning's work, and there is a payment deadline. Most weeks the invoices are paid as they are, with a note to look at it properly later.
Why the hours disagree
Three systems record the same week and none of them talks to the others. The agency's timesheet is often filled in from the booking, not the actual shift. Your clocking data has gaps and duplicates. Breaks, early finishes and swapped shifts are recorded, if at all, on paper.
| Source | Typical gap |
|---|---|
| Agency timesheet | Booked hours rather than worked hours |
| Clocking system | Missed clocks, double clocks, terminals offline |
| Signing-in sheet | Handwritten, not in any system |
| Supervisor notes | Early finishes and moves between clients |
| Rate card | Night, weekend and overtime rules applied inconsistently |
Agency workers also move between clients during a shift, so even correct hours do not tell you which client the labour cost belongs to.
What paying unchecked invoices costs
Hours paid that were not worked, and rates applied at a premium when they should not have been. Neither needs to be deliberate on the agency's part; errors in manual timesheets go in both directions. But without a check, you only hear about the ones in your favour when the agency corrects them.
The bigger cost is invisible labour. Agency spend is usually the largest variable cost in a 3PL, and without allocating it to clients you cannot tell which accounts are paying their way.
There is a people side as well. When a temp's hours are wrong on the agency's side, they are often wrong on the worker's payslip too, and the complaint lands on your supervisors, who then spend a shift looking for a signing-in sheet. Good temporary staff remember which sites pay them correctly.
The matching we build
- Clocking data read from your time and attendance system's export or API, and a simple phone-based sign-in as a backup for when terminals are down.
- The shift plan and supervisor adjustments, such as early finishes and breaks, captured in a small screen rather than on paper.
- Agency invoices read from PDF or CSV, one reader per agency layout, with each line mapped to a worker and a shift.
- Matching by worker and shift, applying the agreed rates, with differences in hours or rates listed with evidence on both sides.
- A dispute pack per agency: the lines you question, what your records show, ready to send.
- Labour allocation to clients from the WMS activity each worker recorded, where they log in to handhelds, or from supervisor assignments.
Approved invoices can be passed into Xero, QuickBooks or Sage as bills, with the matching report attached.
What finance and operations get
Invoices checked line by line without the morning of work. Queries raised with agencies within the week, with evidence. And a view of labour cost per client each week, which feeds pricing reviews and tells you when a client's work has quietly become more labour-intensive.
Signs your agency invoices need this
- Agency invoices are paid without a line-by-line check.
- Clocking data and agency timesheets disagree.
- Signing-in sheets fill gaps when the clocking system fails.
- Early finishes are not reliably reflected on invoices.
- You cannot say how much agency labour went to each client.