Billings
Billings is the fee income a recruiter, desk or agency generates in a period, measured against target. For perm it means placement fees. For contract, agencies differ on whether it means everything invoiced to clients or only the margin, so the number needs defining.
Perm billings can be counted at four points: when the offer is accepted, when the candidate starts, when the fee is invoiced, or when the client pays. Each gives a different month-end total, and the gap between the first and the last can be two or three months on a single placement. Most agencies report on one basis for targets and another for cash, which is fine as long as everyone knows which figure is on the league table.
Contract is where the definitions split. Twenty contractors billed at £660 a day generate £66,000 of invoices a week, but £55,000 of that is contractor pay, and the agency's gross profit is £11,000. A desk that calls £66,000 its weekly billings looks six times larger than its contribution. Many agencies therefore measure consultants on net fee income, meaning perm fees plus contract margin, and keep invoiced turnover for cash planning and funding. Neither measure is wrong, but a league table that mixes them is.
Pace comparisons have their own trap. Comparing the first ten days of this month with the whole of last month always looks bad, and because agency billings tend to cluster at month end, even a fair day-for-day comparison needs reading with that in mind. Comparing like for like, the same number of days in the equivalent month, is the honest read.
The other failures are about completeness: placements recorded without a fee that silently count as zero, split placements counted in full for both consultants, and rebates and credit notes that reduce the cash but never the billings figure.
Retained search adds another variation. A retainer paid in stages, commonly on engagement, on shortlist and on completion, can be billed in a month when nothing is placed at all. Whether a stage payment counts towards a consultant's target, and whether it is taken back if the client cancels the search, is a policy decision that belongs in the commission scheme rather than in a conversation at quarter end.
How Vayora handles it
The Reports overview in Vayora shows billings on a booked basis, the placement fees for placements made in the window, against target where one is set. Month to date is compared with the same number of days in the same month last year rather than a complete month, and when placements in the window have no fee recorded, the report says so instead of counting them silently as zero. An account setting can hide money figures from the wider team; account admins always see them.