Recharging job-advert costs to a client
How a recruitment agency records the job board's bill for an advert, claims the VAT where it can, and recharges the cost on the client's invoice.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Recruitment businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
A client asks you to fill a hard role quickly, and you agree to advertise it on a paid job board, in a trade publication or through sponsored social posts. The advert runs, the applications come in, and a month later the job board's invoice arrives. If nobody connects that bill to the vacancy, the cost sits in your general advertising expense and the client never pays it.
Recharged advertising is small money on any single role, but across a year of vacancies it adds up, and it is often the first thing an agency forgets to bill. This article walks through recording the bill, handling the VAT, putting the recharge on the client's invoice, and agreeing it in your terms so the client is not surprised.
The job board's invoice as a supplier bill
There are two ways to get the job board's invoice into Achekam.
Capture it as a supplier bill. A business records supplier bills line by line, with VAT on each line. A bill that is not linked to a purchase order waits for approval before it posts, and it can then be paid in full or in parts from the bank account you choose.
Upload it. A supplier invoice uploaded to Financial Intake becomes a suggested posting. AI can suggest the coding, but only a person approves and posts it.
Whichever route you use, make the vacancy visible on the bill. Put the client's name and the role in the line description, for example "Featured listing: credit controller, for the client's Durban branch". That one habit is what lets you find the cost again when you invoice the client.
It also helps to keep these costs apart from your own brand advertising. Accounts can be added to your chart, so ask your accountant whether to create an account such as "Advertising recharged to clients". At month end its balance should roughly match what you have recharged; a balance that keeps growing means adverts are not being billed on.
Input VAT on the bill in South Africa
For a South African business, supplier bills take VAT at 15% or 0% per line, and posted bills put the input VAT into the ledger. If the job board is a registered vendor and its tax invoice is valid, the VAT on the advert is input tax you can claim in the usual way.
Two cautions. An advert bought from a foreign platform may carry no South African VAT on the invoice, so check what the bill actually shows before you capture a rate. And keep the tax invoice itself: SARS's VAT 404 guide for vendors sets out what a valid tax invoice must contain, the documentary proof a vendor needs and the limits on claiming input tax.
Nigerian and Kenyan agencies follow their own VAT rules for purchases, and should agree the treatment of each kind of advert with their accountant before claiming anything.
A recharge line on the client's invoice
The recharge goes on the client's invoice as its own line, separate from the placement fee or search instalment. A business creates customer invoices as drafts that can be changed or deleted, and issuing one gives it the next number in the sequence and posts it to the ledger as debtors, sales and output VAT.
Good wording for the line names what was bought and why:
Advertising recharged: featured listing for the credit controller vacancy, as agreed on your instruction.
Attach or send a copy of the job board's invoice if your terms promise it. Clients who see the supplier's own document rarely dispute the amount.
Decide too whether the recharge waits for the placement invoice or goes out on its own. If your terms say advertising is payable whether or not the role is filled, bill it when the cost is incurred, rather than letting it ride on a fee that may never arise. How agencies time their main fee invoice is covered in when to issue the placement invoice.
VAT taken at the rate in force on the invoice date
When an invoice line states no VAT rate, Achekam takes VAT at the rate in force on the invoice date. A credit note uses the date and tax codes of the invoice it corrects.
For a recharge, that means two things. First, a VAT-registered agency normally charges output VAT on the recharge line like any other line of its service, even if the original advert carried none. Second, if the rate changes between the advert and your invoice, the invoice date decides the rate, not the date of the job board's bill.
There is one exception worth raising with your accountant: a cost you pay purely as the client's agent, in the client's name, can be treated as a disbursement rather than part of your own supply. That is a narrower case than most agencies assume, so do not treat advertising that way without advice.
Agreeing recharges in your terms of business first
Most disputes about recharged advertising come from clients who did not know they would pay for it. Settle it before the advert runs:
- Name the costs. List which kinds of advertising may be recharged: paid listings, print adverts, sponsored posts.
- Ask first. Get the client's written go-ahead, with an estimate, before you book the advert.
- Say how it is charged. At cost, or at cost plus a handling fee, and whether VAT is added.
- Say when it is payable. On the first invoice, or only if the role is filled.
- Keep the evidence. File the client's approval and the supplier's invoice with the vacancy.
For retained assignments, where the client pays in stages anyway, the advert can be recharged on the next stage invoice; see invoicing a retained search in stages.
Start with the adverts you booked last month. Find each job board bill, check it names the vacancy, and confirm that every advert your terms allow you to recharge has reached a client invoice.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
