As your live events business grows, so do the complexities of managing freelance technicians. With every new project, you face increasing risks and administrative burdens—from creating compliant contracts to securing the right insurance and ensuring on-time payments. At Mertzcrew, we understand that these challenges can feel overwhelming, especially as your company scales.

That’s why we’ve built the only all-in-one freelance management software designed to help live events companies crew smarter, not harder. Mertzcrew protects your business by simplifying contracting, insurance, and payments—so you can focus on what you do best.

What Is Mertzcrew?

Mertzcrew is an AV solution that’s specifically designed to enable live event companies of any size to streamline contracting, insurance, and payments. By automating some processes and providing easy-to-use tools to help you manage others, Mertzcrew frees up your time, so you have more of it to spend wowing your clients.

In the live event world, protecting your projects—and your peace of mind—starts with solving the right problems. Here are three areas where Mertzcrew helps you take control and avoid unnecessary risk:

• Simplifying the contracting process of freelance technicians.
• Obtaining and tracking insurance to protect you and the contractors you book.
• Tracking freelancers’ services and expenses, all in one place.

A mistake in any one of these areas can cause problems and leave a live event company open to liability. Mertzcrew’s mission is to take those liabilities and turn them into reliabilities: things your freelancers and clients can count on you to get right, every time.

How Does Mertzcrew Help AV Companies with Contracting Freelancers?

Each freelance contract must comply with legal requirements at every level. In the United States, there are local, state, and federal laws to consider. If you’re producing an event in another country, you’ll also need to adhere to their laws. It’s a complicated element that we make simple.

Compliance isn’t always simple, and regulators might challenge the validity of your contracts if you’re not careful. Here are some red flags that could lead to liability.

• A lack of clear start and end dates for the work being contracted.
• An open-ended umbrella contract.
• Inaccurate tracking of services provided.
• On-site injuries to uninsured technicians booked directly by you.
• Mertzcrew creates contracts that are compliant, transparent, and protect you from liability.

You can still negotiate the rates, and your relationship with techs remains the same, but we’ll take the guesswork out of the compliance aspect. That way, you can focus on finding the right freelancers for the gig and executing live events that your clients will love.

How Does Mertzcrew Assist Live Event Companies with Freelance Insurance?

Insurance is another necessity that can be hugely time-consuming and difficult for AV companies. Freelance insurance comes with some special challenges. While some freelancers carry their own insurance, not all do – and when they don’t, you’ll need to protect yourself by acquiring the necessary policies.

Mertzcrew streamlines the process and keeps your company covered, whether your project is in the United States, international, or even at sea. Any techs that you contract using Mertzcrew are covered by world-class Chubb Insurance. As long as the US State Department says it’s safe to travel to your destination, your techs will have the coverage they need during the project.

Paying AV Freelancers with Mertzcrew

Payments for freelancers require a lot of work from AV companies. They must devise an accurate way to track freelancers’ time, expenses, and pay rates, and manage any accounting that comes with these tasks. There are tax responsibilities and considerations to keep in mind as well. 

Mertzcrew provides all the tools you need for a streamlined, accurate, and on-time payment system that keeps your techs happy. We’ve got the tools to help you:

• Track freelancers’ services and expenses.
• Collect invoices and consolidate them in one place to streamline the payment process.
• Make on-time payments that adhere to contract rates and payment timeframes.
• Handle the housekeeping by collecting and storing the W-9s as well as distributing 1099s at the end of the year.

Wrapping up projects isn’t always simple, but with Mertzcrew, all services are compiled into one easy-to-review invoice, which turns something that could be inefficient into a quick process.

Mertzcrew’s freelance payment features allow you to be a reliable partner to your AV freelancers while simultaneously protecting yourself from liability. That’s why technicians love working with companies that use Mertzcrew. They know they pay freelancers on time!

Mertzcrew Provides an All-In-One Software Solution for Live Event Companies

It wasn’t very long ago that live event companies needed to pay for and use multiple software tools to book and manage an event. These might have been good products, but the need to juggle more than one solution made them more costly, and more inefficient, than they needed to be.

That’s where Mertzcrew comes in. Our software is a one-stop shop for Live Event companies to crew their projects and manage the crew until the project’s successful closing. Here are just a few of the ways we streamline event production for our clients. Once you partner with Mertzcrew, our features help you with:

• Searching for qualified freelancers near event locations, with filtering by skills and other important criteria.
• Reviewing crew profiles and ratings to narrow your search and decide who to crew for your next live event.
• Creating compliant contracts for all freelancers you book, ensuring that you’re adhering to local, state, federal, and international laws. (Including compliance with California’s labor law, AB5).
• Tracking and (when necessary) obtaining worker’s comp insurance and production insurance to protect both your freelancers and your company.
• Creating production schedules to ensure everything stays on track.
• Communicating with techs before, during, and after an event.
• Tracking W-9s from the live event professionals you contract with and distributing 1099s on time.
• Tracking freelancers’ time and expenses, then consolidating invoices into one, easy-to-review invoice for all the time they worked.
• Paying freelancers on time and in accordance with their contracts.
• Taking care of related accounting tasks, such as wage garnishments and withholding.

We know that Mertzcrew is the only crew management software you need because it enables Live Event companies to save valuable time, reduce costs, and minimize the risks associated with producing events and booking freelancers.

What Can Mertzcrew Do For You?

Your goal is to amaze your clients with memorable events that go off without a hitch. Ours is to give you the tools you need to simplify the process. The administrative and accounting tasks that used to take up hours of your time can now be managed using Mertzcrew’s comprehensive suite of tools and features.

In other words, we’re here to make your job as easy as it can be. Partnering with Mertzcrew takes the time-consuming elements of event production and transforms them into something you barely need to think about. That means you can put your focus where it belongs: on producing live events that your clients and attendees will love.

Protect Your Live Event Company: Contracts, Insurance, and Payments Made Simple, So You Can Focus On Your Craft

Live event production is challenging enough without the stress of managing contracts, insurance, and payments. Mertzcrew protects your business from liability while saving you time and money. By consolidating administrative tasks into one platform, we help you focus on delivering unforgettable live events.

Protect your company with Mertzcrew—contracts, insurance, and payments made simple so you can focus on your craft.

If you’re ready to streamline Live Event production and stop worrying about the administrative details related to crew management, Mertzcrew is here to help. Click here to get a free demo and see what we can do for you.