We screen every engagement before the contract.

Classification first. Engagement second.

The biggest risk in contractor engagement is mis-classification. Most countries' tax and labour authorities have tests — control of hours, sole client, use of own tools, embedded in team, business of one's own — that determine whether someone is a real contractor or a hidden employee. We screen every engagement before the contract is drafted. If it passes the test, we engage as contractor. If it fails, we route to Direct EOR — and you don't engage someone as a contractor who'd survive an audit as an employee.

PASS · Real contractor.

Their hours, their tools, multiple clients. Real contractor: project-based, defined deliverables, multiple clients. Right of substitution. Operates as a business. Their tools, their hours, their office. Engage through Global Kinect.

FAIL · Mis-classification risk.

Hours dictated, sole client, embedded. Hours dictated by the engaging party. Sole client. Use of engaging party's tools and laptop. Embedded in the engaging party's team. No business of their own. Route to Direct EOR. Don't engage as contractor.

Five things per contractor engagement.

01 Classification opinion — per engagement, country-specific. We say yes (engage as contractor), no (mis-classified — route to EOR), or 'make it EOR.' Written opinion you can show internal compliance. 02 Local-law contract — drafted in the right jurisdiction. Substitution rights, scope, IP assignment, termination terms per local law. 03 Invoice intake — contractor submits invoice; we validate against the contract; routes to your approval; FX-handled. 04 Multi-currency payout — pay out in the contractor's preferred currency. Currency conversion handled; compliant audit trail retained. 05 Annual review — per engagement, per country, annually. Classification tests change; we re-screen and update the contract or recommend conversion to EOR if the engagement has drifted toward employment.

200+ sub-clients? Sub-client templating is native.

For buyers operating recruitment agencies, contractor management firms, or smaller EOR providers — where the commercial model is many small engagements rather than few large ones — sub-client templating is the load-bearing capability. Each end client gets their own contract templates, their own branding, their own invoicing routing, their own visibility. The platform handles 200+ sub-clients without per-client manual setup; aggregated visibility shows your book, drill-down shows any engagement. Operates on the same MENA payroll engine that runs Direct Payroll and EOR-Engine underneath.

Project work. Real independence. Defined deliverables.

Project work — defined scope, defined deliverables, defined end date. Contractor doing project work that survives an audit as project work. Specialist short engagements — specific expertise for a specific window. The engaging party isn't the contractor's sole client; the relationship is genuinely commercial, not employment-shaped. Long-tail freelance — regular but not full-time engagement with someone who has their own business, their own tools, their own multiple clients. Maintained through annual review. Anything that doesn't pass the test routes to Direct EOR. We don't engage hidden employees as contractors and we don't recommend you do either.

Frequently asked questions