Sams Pay roundtable: Four things we learned about agent pay

Sponsored by Sams Pay, an online platform designed to streamline the often convoluted processes institutions have to follow to pay their agents, the event brought together senior figures from top UK institutions for a glamorous lunch at the celebrity-favourite Delauney restaurant in London’s West End.

During the event – held on October 16 – stakeholders discussed the challenges they face in making sure agents are paid on time – including reluctant finance teams, complicated commission structures and juggling huge pools of recruitment partners.

Read on to find out the highlights of the discussion.

1. Pay delays are a headache for everyone…

   Long waiting times to be paid commission for placing an international student are all too common for many agents. Understandably, this can leave them feeling disgruntled and reluctant to place students with institutions that fail to cough up on time. One attendee suggested that this was more likely to happen with small agencies or lone operators, where payment delays have real-world consequences for their business.

   Attendees discussed the stress of not having ultimate control of when their recruitment partners are paid, leaving them vulnerable if they decide to send students elsewhere.

   It became clear that the lead time for payment runs varies wildly between different universities. One said their commission requests are usually processed within three months – extended from a previous four-week target after it was decided this wasn’t long enough to assess the quality of the student. 

   Others said their universities usually paid within three to six months, but that multiple intakes throughout the year complicated this process somewhat, as some struggled to process one commission intake before another one started.

   One suggested reason for payment delays was a lack of urgency from finance teams, who can understandably fail to understand the importance of reimbursing agents on time among a slew of payment requests from other vendors.

2. When is an international student actually enrolled?
   
   A repeated area of debate was centred on when institutions consider international students to be fully enrolled, kickstarting the payment process for the agent.

   One university said the didn’t deem a student enrolled util they had paid 63-75% of their fees, while another said their institution only counted international students who had paid half of their fees alongside an agreed ongoing payment plan.

   While the inconsistency of criteria at different universities can be bothersome for institutions and agents alike, the need for a good chunk of fees to be paid before full enrolment was largely agreed by attendees, owing to the risk of students enrolling but failing to attend.

   There can also be issues with universities’ systems and how they keep track of individual students. One institution uses an Excel sheet to manually match up students with enrolments, while another uses an agent portal that shows applications that don’t turn into enrolments.

   Similarly, agencies must make sure that the bank details on their invoices match with those listed on the supplier forms to avoid costly delays.

3. Responsibility goes both ways

   Although the roundtable attendees agreed that there can be issues with processing on the universities’ side, there was consensus that in some cases, a lack of organisation at agencies can be the cause of late payments.

   One guest revealed that some agencies can be slow at invoicing for the students that they have placed, for example only requesting payment in December when the student has enrolled in July.

   Other issues mentioned included agencies changing their legal name when their old name is used in the contract with the university – creating an administrative nightmare – and a failure to mention the designated agency contact on the commission invoices.

   There can also be problems when two agents claim for the same student. Although rare, occurring in fewer than 5% of cases, the rule of thumb tends to be that that once the student’s deposit is paid to the university, the agent can’t be changed.

4. Giving power back to finance teams
   
   One way to improve the payment process, delegates agreed, is giving finance teams all the tools they need to make payments quickly and efficiently.

   Finance teams can often feel like they have to take on the “bad guy” role when making payments, but taking steps such as giving teams a dedicated email address for agents can help to empower them, as well as separating out these payment requests so they don’t get lost among the many other invoices that are sent in.

   Finance staff are right to be cautious when paying agents in some cases, guests revealed, due to the low risk of fraud. One revealed they had seen a case where the numbers on an invoice had changed after it had already been opened.