Contractors are external collaborators who work with you on projects: freelancers, agency staff, or anyone outside your organization.
Like employees, they have full login access to Productive and count as paid seats on your subscription.
📌 Before adding a contractor, make sure you have enough paid seats available in your account.
How to Add a Contractor
You can add a contractor in two ways.
From Settings:
Go to Settings > Users and click + Add User.
Select Contractor as the user type.
Fill in the required fields: first name, last name, subsidiary, company, and email.
Click Add User.
From Resourcing:
Go to Resourcing > Employees and click + Employee.
Select Contractor as the user type and fill in the details.
By default, the contractor receives an email invitation. Uncheck Send invitation via email if you want to add them without sending an invite immediately (you can always send it later).
The Subsidiary Field
The Subsidiary field determines which of your organization's internal entities the contractor belongs to for reporting and management purposes. It has no effect on project access or time tracking.
What it does affect:
Financial and payroll reporting: the contractor's time entries and cost data roll up under the assigned subsidiary. This determines which subsidiary's books they appear in.
Cost rate visibility: managers with subsidiary-scoped permissions can only see cost rates for people in their own subsidiary. Org-wide admins can see all.
Absence bookings and entitlements: managers with subsidiary-scoped time-off permissions can only create and view absence bookings for people in their own subsidiary.
If your organization has only one subsidiary, this field is auto-filled and has no practical impact. If you have multiple subsidiaries, assign the contractor to the one that should own them in financial reporting and whose managers should handle their time off.
The Company Field
The Company field refers to the firm or agency the contractor belongs to on their end: not a client they'll work for, and not one of your own entities.
For example:
A freelancer's own registered company
A subcontracting agency you source people from
Any external organization that employs the contractor
📌 The company you assign has no effect on which projects the contractor can access. It's used for organizational grouping only.
If the company doesn't exist in Productive yet, you can create it inline directly from the contractor form. You can fill in the full company details later from CRM > Companies.
Finding and Managing Contractors
Once added, contractors appear alongside employees in Resourcing > Employees. Filter by permission set to view contractors only.
Open a contractor's profile to view and manage their details across several tabs:
Info: edit their job title, permission set, teams, and contact details.
Cost Rates: add or update their cost rate.
Absence: assign absence allowances (time off or remote work) so the contractor can request leave and appear correctly in the Resource Planner.
Activity: view their work log, feed updates, and any associated emails.
Setting Up a Cost Rate
You must set a cost rate for a contractor before they can track time or be booked for services in the Resource Planner. Without it, they won't appear as an option when logging time or scheduling. Cost rates also feed into budget profitability calculations.
Go to the contractor's profile and open the Cost Rates tab to add their rate.
📌 By default, only Admins can add or edit cost rates.
How Project Access Works
Contractors only see projects they're explicitly added to. They don't get automatic access based on the company assigned to them. Access is granted through:
Direct membership: added individually to a project
Team membership: part of a team that has access to the project
Budget/Deal Access and Time Tracking
Contractors track time against services within budgets or deals. Access to a budget or a deal is granted separately from project membership — a contractor can be added to a budget or a deal directly, even if it isn't tied to a project.
Once added to a budget or deal, a contractor can log time against its services from Time > My Time, and submit expenses tied to those services.
📌 A cost rate must be set before a contractor can track time or be booked in the Resource Planner.
Contractor Permissions
Contractors have one default permission set and unlike employees, there are no tiers to choose from. By default, contractors can:
Collaborate on projects they've been added to
Manage tasks and task lists (but not add or delete task lists)
View their bookings in the Resource Planner
Create and manage docs shared with them
Submit personal expenses tied to services in shared budgets/deals.
View and manage their own time entries
Request time off or remote work, if absence allowances have been assigned to them
📌 Absence allowances are optional and admin-controlled. They're useful if you schedule contractors alongside your team as their time-off blocks appear in the Resource Planner and prevent double-booking.
Employees vs. Contractors
Employees and contractors both have login access and count as paid seats.
The key differences are in permission flexibility and how access to projects and time tracking on budgets and deals is granted.
| Employee | Contractor |
Permission sets | Multiple tiers | One default set |
Can be Admin or Manager | ✓ | ✗ |
Project access | Based on permission set* | Explicit membership only |
Time tracking on budgets and deals | Based on permission set* | Explicit membership only |
*Employees on Staff or any restricted permission set also require explicit project, budget, and deal membership.