How agencies work

An agency does not have one relationship with its clients. It may employ some workers and second them to a client, run payroll for a client’s own staff, keep records for another, and place people permanently with a fourth. Cadre records each of these separately, so the right organisation carries each obligation.

Three questions for every worker

For every person, Cadre records three things. For a direct employee they are the same organisation. At an agency they often are not.

	Question	On a person’s profile
Legal employer	Who employs the person, pays them, and carries the statutory obligations?	Legal employer
Payroll operator	Who runs their payroll?	Runs payroll
Worksite	Where do they actually work?	Works at

Statutory obligations always follow the legal employer, never the payroll operator. PAYE, pension, NHF, NSITF and ITF are filed under the legal employer’s registrations, whoever runs payroll. When you run payroll for a client who is the legal employer, the client’s TIN, PAYE state, pension employer code and NSITF registration are the ones on every schedule, not yours.

Cadre fills these in from the worker group you choose when you add someone. You never set them by hand, so they cannot be set wrongly.

The service models

Each worker group at a client has one service model. A client can have several worker groups on different models.

Model	In Cadre	Legal employer	Runs payroll	What you bill the client
A	Model A · Outsourcing: “We employ and pay the workers; they work at the client.”	Your agency	Your agency	Salary and statutory cost, plus a margin and any fees
B	Model B · Payroll bureau: “The client employs the workers; we run their payroll.”	The client	Your agency	Agency fees only, never salary cost
C	Model C · Administration only: “The client employs and pays the workers; we keep their records.”	The client	The client	A retainer or per-worker fee
D	Model D · Permanent placement: “A one-off placement; the worker joins the client directly.”	The client	The client	A one-off placement fee

In more detail:

Model A. Your agency is the legal employer. The workers are on your payroll and your statutory registrations. The client is their worksite, so their cost is allocated to that client and invoiced there. People on Model A are your seconded workers.
Model B. The client is the legal employer and funds the salaries. You press the button on the run, but the run is under the client’s name and registrations. You invoice a processing fee.
Model C. There is no payroll in Cadre for these workers. You keep their records, leave and documents, and invoice a retainer or admin fee.
Model D. You place a candidate and earn a fee. You keep no employee record for them. See Placements. A worker group cannot be set up as Model D: placements are recorded on their own.

Your own staff are simply employed by your agency and work at your agency. They are paid in their own run and are never invoiced to anyone.

Managed clients

When you add a client, Cadre creates it as its own organisation, managed by your agency. Its people are held in your agency’s account, and your team does the work for them. That is why:

a client’s statutory registrations are entered on your Clients screen, and used wherever the client is the legal employer;
a client can have its own logo and letterhead, set by you, which appear on the payslips and documents it issues as legal employer (Models B and C);
reminders and daily tasks for a client’s employees, such as leave accrual and signature reminders, run in your account and go to the employee and to your HR team for that client.

One payroll run per client

Cadre never merges clients into one payroll. Each month you have a separate run for:

each client where you employ workers under Model A, under your agency as legal employer, limited to people working at that client;
each client whose payroll you run under Model B, under the client as legal employer;
your own staff.

Each run is calculated, approved and locked on its own, and each produces its own register, payslips and statutory schedules. See Multi-client payroll.

Why Cadre works this way

“The agency pays whoever it manages” is not true for Models B, C and D. If Cadre assumed it, a Model B client’s PAYE could be remitted under your agency’s tax identity: a compliance failure for two organisations at once. Keeping the legal employer separate from the payroll operator makes that impossible.