What a trade is
A trade is the company-level role or discipline selected in operational workflows. It connects requisitions, assignments, rates, competency requirements, purchase orders, timesheets, reporting, and dashboards to a consistent role record.
Where trades are used
Requisitions use the selected trade to determine available rates, pay types, rate types, requirements, and assignment context.
Assignments store the assigned trade and use it for rate, shift, timesheet, document, and reporting context.
Rates are configured against trades at company, project, and supplier level. Hiring companies can also set standard or enhanced uplift overrides for a specific agency and trade.
Competency matrices can attach qualification or certification requirements to trades.
Reports, exports, purchase orders, and dashboards can filter or group data by trade. On the agency dashboard, the rate chart trade selector appears only after a single company scope is selected.
Trade setup
Trades belong to a company. Each trade has a name, description, master trade category, active status, and optional trade tags. The master trade category groups company-specific trade names under a standard field.
Recommended setup order
Confirm the company is active and has the region, sector, and rate setup needed for downstream workflows.
Add or import the company's trades.
Review each trade's description, category, active status, and tags.
Add rates for the trades that will be used on requisitions and assignments.
Add competency requirements where worker eligibility or certification checks are required.
Review requisition, assignment, and purchase order workflows that depend on the trade list.
What a trade controls
The trade options shown when users create requisitions or assignments.
Which rates can be selected or validated for a role.
Which competency requirements can be shown for worker eligibility.
The trade context stored on assignments and timesheets.
Trade-based filtering in reports, exports, purchase orders, and dashboards. On the agency dashboard, all-company rate charts are shown without a trade selector.
Active and inactive trades
Active trades are available for normal operational selection. Inactive trades remain in the record and can still be reviewed, but they should not be used for new work unless reactivated.
What is not stored on the trade
The trade record stores the company role itself. Rates, competency requirements, requisitions, assignments, timesheets, and purchase orders are stored as separate records that refer to the trade.
Preferred phrasing
The UI can display your company's preferred phrasing for trade and trade tags. This means labels may appear with local terminology while still referring to the same trade records.
Access and visibility
Trade visibility depends on role and company scope. Company and project users see trades for their company scope. Desk users choose from accessible companies and see active trades. System Admin users can filter by company.
Common dependencies
Rates must exist before a trade can be used successfully in rate-driven workflows.
Competency matrices must exist before requirements appear in the Trades list or related worker workflows.
Trade tags must be configured for the company before they can be selected on a trade.
Company preferred phrasing controls the labels users see, but it does not change the underlying trade data.
For agencies: how trades affect you
Trades are defined and maintained by the hiring company, but you use them whenever you supply workers, so it helps to know how they work.
You select a company first, then see that company's active trades; the trade catalogue and its setup are owned by the hiring company.
The trade drives the rates and markup that apply to your workers, so the right trade selection matters for billing.
Creating, editing, and importing trades are hiring-company actions; agency users can view active trades and export them where they have supplier access to the company.
If a trade you need is missing, inactive, or has no rates, ask the hiring company to add or configure it.