By Jordan Kirshner, Finance & Operations at Worksuite
TL;DR
Freelancers are core contributors to modern organizations, and managing them requires dedicated infrastructure. A freelancer management system (FMS) provides that foundation. The challenge is choosing an FMS that fits how your business actually operates — one that can support end-to-end workflows, integrate with your existing tech stack, roll out in phases, and scale across teams, agencies, and value streams. That’s the FMS advantage — and within the FMS category, that’s where Worksuite is differentiated.
Freelancers are no longer a side channel. For many organizations, they are embedded in delivery teams, supporting core functions, and operating at meaningful scale.
That reality creates pressure fast.
An operations leader described it clearly during a sales conversation:
“The current process will not be possible to scale with the amount of external partners we want to gain for the marketing function.”
This is usually the moment teams realize they need more than spreadsheets, email threads, or repurposed vendor workflows. They need a freelancer management system — not as a nice-to-have, but as operating infrastructure.
If you want a clear baseline definition of what an FMS actually is (and isn’t), this is covered in more detail in
👉 What Is a Freelance Management System (FMS)?
At this stage, the question isn’t whether an FMS is necessary. It’s whether the one you choose will actually work for your business.
Why Managing Freelancers Like Vendors Breaks Down
Many organizations first attempt to manage freelancers through vendor management systems or finance-led processes. That works — until it doesn’t.
Vendor systems are designed around companies, not individuals. They assume supplier onboarding, vendor assessments, and invoice-based relationships. That model quickly collapses under freelancer volume.
A finance leader responsible for accounts payable explained the issue directly:
“Any external partner is seen as a vendor and has to go through a vendor assessment and be onboarded into accounts payable… that makes sense for a larger vendor, but it becomes very tedious to onboard 200 people a month.”
This is the core category mismatch.
Freelancers are people embedded in teams. Treating them like vendors creates friction across onboarding, approvals, payments, and compliance — especially as programs scale.
This breakdown is one of the most common root causes we see behind failed freelancer programs, and it shows up repeatedly in onboarding workflows
👉 Top 5 Freelancer Onboarding Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)
FMS as Infrastructure That Fits Your Business
A freelancer management system isn’t meant to disrupt how your organization works. It’s meant to support it.
Some teams want a system that can run the full freelancer lifecycle end to end. Others need to start by solving a specific problem — onboarding, compliance, or payments — and expand from there.
A strong FMS supports both.
That means:
- Modular deployment based on current needs
- Integration with existing HR, finance, and project tools
- Phased rollouts that reduce risk
- The ability to scale across departments, agencies, and regions
- The option to consolidate tools later, when it makes sense
This isn’t about limiting capability. It’s about aligning capability to reality.
Modular Adoption Enables Safer Rollouts
Large organizations rarely adopt new systems all at once. They prove value, build trust, and expand intentionally.
That need for safety comes through clearly in evaluations.
An operations and technology leader described their concern this way:
“What we don’t want to do is go through this initial process of setting up on phase one and then realize later that the commercials or the structure don’t work for how we need to scale this.”
This is exactly why modular FMS adoption matters.
Teams often start with onboarding to eliminate manual contracts and paperwork, then layer in compliance and approvals, and later expand into payments — especially when managing freelancers across borders.
For teams dealing with international talent, this becomes even more important, as outlined in
👉 How to Onboard Global Freelancers and Remote Workers
Built to Integrate With the Existing Tech Stack
An FMS doesn’t live in isolation. It has to coexist with systems that already run the business.
Integration isn’t a bonus feature. It’s a requirement.
A technical leader described the desired role of an FMS clearly:
“Worksuite acts as the operational system for onboarding, compliance, bookings, and payments, and then that data can be pushed out to other systems.”
That framing matters.
A strong FMS manages freelancer-specific workflows while feeding clean, structured data into HR, finance, and reporting systems that already exist. This is what allows teams to improve control without duplicating data or breaking existing processes.
End-to-End Capability, When the Business Is Ready
Not every organization needs an end-to-end solution on day one. But they do need confidence that the system won’t become the limiting factor as they grow.
A finance leader explained their long-term goal this way:
“We want to use one platform and have one work stream, but within the tool we can then assign if this payment went for one brand or another and pull reports by brand.”
That’s the balance mature teams are looking for: modular adoption today, comprehensive capability over time.
This is also why teams evaluating platforms often look at broader comparisons between contractor and freelancer management tools
👉 7 Best Contractor Management Software for Global Teams
Why This Is the FMS Advantage — and Where Worksuite Fits
The real advantage of an FMS isn’t just feature coverage. It’s adaptability.
Within the FMS category, Worksuite is built to:
- Support the full freelancer lifecycle end to end
- Integrate cleanly into existing tech stacks and processes
- Roll out in phases to keep teams comfortable
- Scale across multiple agencies, departments, and value streams
- Consolidate tools over time, when and if the business chooses
Every organization is different. Worksuite is designed to fit the needs of the customer — not force the customer to fit the software.
Final Thought
Freelancers are not vendors. They are not employees. And managing them without dedicated infrastructure creates risk that grows with scale.
If freelancers matter to your business, you need a freelancer management system.
The right FMS doesn’t ask you to rip out what’s working.
It meets you where you are, supports how you operate, and scales as you grow.
That’s the standard teams should hold FMS platforms to — and the lens this article is meant to give you.
About the Author
Jordan Kirshner helps global teams turn messy contractor operations into workflows that actually run across onboarding, approvals, compliance, and payments.
He works at the intersection of two worlds. The technical reality of how platforms, integrations, and data flows work, and the practical reality of how HR, Legal, Finance, and Ops teams operate day to day. His focus is simple. Bridge the gap between complex systems and usable processes so companies can scale external talent without scaling chaos.
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