Commercial & Billing
Most search firms run the commercial side of the business somewhere else — a rate card in a shared drive, a fee percentage in someone's head, a spreadsheet that gets rebuilt every time an invoice is due. RayCruit keeps the agreement, the mandate's terms and the billable events on the same customer, mandate and placement that produced them.
Amounts are shown only to roles permitted to see them.
The problem
Everything up to the placement is recorded: who the client is, what they briefed, which candidate was submitted, when the offer was accepted. Then the trail stops. What was agreed with this client, whether this mandate followed the standard rate, which events are actually billable — all of that lives outside the system, and has to be reconstructed by the person writing the invoice.
Three levels, each attached where it belongs. The customer carries what was agreed in general, the mandate carries what applies to this particular search, and the placement carries what actually happened and can be billed.
Record the agreement you actually signed: validity period, currency, payment terms, the default fee model and rate, minimum and maximum fee, replacement guarantee, candidate ownership period, exclusivity, expense policy and cancellation terms. Every mandate for that customer can start from it.
Each mandate carries one active set of terms, and it is visible where they came from: taken from the customer's framework agreement, agreed separately for this search, or the framework with specific points overridden. Not every mandate for the same client follows the same economics, and the mandate says which it is.
A search is rarely one amount. Hold the retainer, the success fee, fixed and milestone fees, bonuses, monthly service or hourly fees and expense reimbursement as separate components — each with its own calculation basis, and its own minimum or maximum where one was agreed.
Percentage fees need to say percentage of what. Choose base salary, target cash compensation, OTE, fixed plus variable, total first-year compensation, annualised compensation or a fixed amount — and note whether bonus, variable pay, car allowance, sign-on or equity count towards it.
When a candidate is submitted, shortlisted, interviewed, offered or starts, RayCruit proposes the matching billable event against that candidate and mandate. Proposals are never confirmed automatically — someone with the right permission confirms, adjusts or cancels each one.
Confirmed events become billing items in one queue you can filter by status, customer, mandate, what is ready to invoice and what is overdue. Each item keeps its link back to the customer, mandate, candidate and fee component it came from.
Move an item from draft to ready, then record the invoice reference and date when you issue it, and the payment date when it lands. RayCruit does not create invoices or take payments — it keeps the trail so you always know what is still to bill and what is still outstanding.
Commercial visibility is a permission of its own, and seeing amounts is a second one on top of it. A researcher can work the mandate without ever seeing the fee; a consultant can see that terms exist without seeing the numbers. Amounts are withheld before they reach the browser, not hidden in it.
No separate commercial process to run alongside the recruiting one. The agreement is captured once, the mandate inherits it, and the search itself produces the events.
Capture the framework agreement on the customer once — rate, minimum fee, guarantee, payment terms, exclusivity — and see how many mandates are running on it.
Start a mandate from the customer's agreement, or depart from it deliberately. The mandate records which of the two it is, so the exception is visible rather than forgotten.
Add the retainer, the success fee and anything else that was agreed, each with its calculation basis and any floor or ceiling.
Submissions, shortlist decisions, interviews, offers and starts each propose the billable event that belongs to them, linked to the fee component they trigger.
Review the proposals against the pairing they came from, confirm what genuinely applies, cancel what does not, and add anything the workflow could not see.
A confirmed event becomes an item in the billing queue, carrying its customer, mandate, candidate, fee component and amount with it.
Mark items ready, park what is disputed, record the invoice reference when you issue it and the payment when it arrives — so nothing billable is quietly forgotten.
A retained executive search and a contingency vacancy for the same customer carry different terms without either overwriting the other.
Whether an advance payment offsets the success fee is recorded on the component, not remembered by whoever negotiated it.
When a colleague takes over a mandate, the commercial arrangement comes with it instead of staying in the previous owner's inbox.
Replacement guarantee and candidate ownership periods are held on the agreement, so they are a field rather than a surprise.
Confirmed events point back to the submission, interview or start that caused them, so the amount can be explained if the client questions it.
A mandate that departs from the customer's standard terms says so on its face, for as long as the mandate exists.
Agreements, terms, fees and events are never read into an AI prompt, never written into a client-ready document and never exposed through a portal.
Creating, editing, archiving or cancelling anything commercial is written to the activity record — without amounts, since not everyone reading it may see those.
See it in motion
How the modules hand over to each other in the real product — customer and mandate, candidate and matrix, the workspace where a pairing is decided, and the material that goes to the client.
2 min
Continue across the platform
Client companies, contacts, roles and the relationship history behind every mandate.
Learn moreStructured search briefs with requirements, gates, commercials and a live pipeline.
Learn moreThe candidate × mandate workbench for evaluation, process, feedback and delivery.
Learn morePermission groups, confidential mandates, enterprise sign-in and an append-only audit trail.
Learn moreA demo follows one mandate across every module, which is the only way the connections become obvious.
