What Is the Overhead Field?
When you place a contractor, your margin isn't just bill rate minus pay rate. There are costs you absorb like employer taxes, admin fees, compliance costs, that sit between those two numbers and reduce what you actually keep.
The Overhead field lets you log those costs directly on the placement record. Once entered, Recruiterflow factors overhead into your margin calculation automatically:
Margin = Bill Rate − Pay Rate − Overhead
This updated margin flows through to the job's Billing tab and into your revenue reports, so what your team and stakeholders see is your real margin.
The Overhead field is available on Contract and Temporary placement types only.
How to Record Overhead on a Placement
There are two ways you can add an Overhead in a placement:
While making the placement
After the placement is done
1. While Making the Placement
When you move a candidate to a hired state, you will see the Overhead field in the placement popup.
Fill it in, and then number will be reflected in the placements and the reports.
2. After the Placement is Done
Step 1: Open the placement record
Navigate to the placement, and open the relevant record.
Placement records are created automatically when a candidate moves to the Hired stage.
Step 2: Enter the overhead value
Inside the placement record, locate the Overhead field. Click the options icon seen n the let side and click on Edit. Enter the overhead amount per time unit (the same unit used for bill rate and pay rate) and click on Update.
Common overhead costs you can record here:
Employer taxes (e.g., payroll tax, NI contributions)
Admin and payroll processing fees
Compliance or legal costs tied to the placement
Any other cost absorbed by your agency per billing unit
Step 3: Confirm the updated margin
Once overhead is entered, Recruiterflow recalculates your margin automatically. The updated figure reflects:
Margin = Bill Rate − Pay Rate − Overhead
Confirm the margin displayed matches your expectation before saving the record.
Where Overhead Appears in Jobs and Reports
Once saved, the overhead-adjusted margin flows through to two places:
Job Billing tab: The margin shown for this placement reflects the overhead deduction. Total Revenue and Total Forecasted Revenue figures update accordingly.
Revenue reports: Margin data in your revenue reports reflects the actual margin after overhead, giving you accurate per-placement and aggregate profitability figures.
Practical Example
You're placing a contractor at a $120/hr bill rate and $90/hr pay rate. On paper, the margin looks like $30/hr. But you're absorbing $8/hr in employer taxes and payroll admin. You enter $8 as overhead. Recruiterflow recalculates the margin to $22/hr, the number that actually shows up in your pocket. That $22 figure is what appears in the job's Billing tab and in your revenue reports.
Things to Know
Overhead is entered per time unit; the same unit (hour, day, week, month) set on the contract.
Overhead is specific to each placement record. If contractors on the same job have different overhead costs, you can set different values per record.
The Overhead field is only available on Contract and Temporary placement types. It does not appear on Contingent, Retained, or RPO placements.
Overhead does not affect the bill rate or pay rate, it only adjusts the margin calculation.
If you leave Overhead blank, the margin defaults to bill rate minus pay rate, same as before.