Admin

The admin role is distinct from Freelancer and Client. Admins are platform operators who manage the health of the marketplace — they do not post jobs or submit proposals. Instead, they oversee users, configure the platform, manage escrow funds, and monitor revenue.

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Dashboard overview

The admin dashboard gives a real-time snapshot of platform activity. Navigate to Dashboard in the admin sidebar to see:

• Escrow balance — the total funds currently held in escrow across all active contracts
• Total revenue — cumulative platform fees collected to date
• Total clients — the number of registered client accounts
• Total freelancers — the number of registered freelancer accounts
• Monthly sales chart — a line graph showing total revenue, freelancer earnings, and platform fees broken down by month

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Managing users

Navigate to Freelancers or Clients in the admin sidebar to view all registered accounts for each role. Each user listing shows account details. From here you can:

• Block an account — prevents the user from logging in or accessing any platform features. A blocked user receives a forbidden error on any authenticated request.
• Unblock an account — restores full access to a previously blocked account.

How blocking is enforced

Every authenticated request passes through the platform’s auth middleware, which checks the user’s status field in the database after verifying their JWT. If status is "blocked", the request is rejected with a 403 Forbidden response before reaching any route handler. This means a blocked user cannot browse jobs, access contracts, or use chat.

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Managing categories and skills

Categories and skills are the taxonomy that clients use when posting jobs and freelancers use when setting up their profiles. Only admins can create and manage them.

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Job categories

Navigate to Job Categories in the admin sidebar.

• Add a category — create a new category (e.g. “Web Development”, “Graphic Design”) that clients can select when posting a job
• Edit a category — update the name of an existing category
• List / unlist a category — listing makes a category available for selection; unlisting hides it from new job postings without deleting historical data

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Skills

Navigate to Skills in the admin sidebar.

• Add a skill — create a new skill tag (e.g. “React”, “Figma”) that freelancers can add to their profiles and clients can require in job listings
• Edit a skill — update the name of an existing skill
• List / unlist a skill — controls whether a skill appears as a selectable option across the platform

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Overseeing contracts

Navigate to Contracts in the admin sidebar to view every contract on the platform — across all clients and freelancers. Each contract entry shows:

• The linked job title
• The client and freelancer involved
• The contract status (active, completed, cancelled)
• The payment amount held in escrow

Click any contract to open its full details.

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Escrow management

Navigate to Payments in the admin sidebar to manage escrow actions. When a client approves completed work, they request a fund release. The admin then acts on that request: If a contract is cancelled or the client raises a dispute, the admin can process a refund: See Payments and escrow for the full escrow lifecycle.

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Revenue tracking

The platform collects a fee on each completed contract. Admins can monitor this from multiple views:

• Total revenue — shown on the dashboard as a running total of all platform fees collected
• Transaction history — a full log of escrow transactions including contract references, amounts, freelancer earnings, and platform fees
• Sales report — a downloadable report of all transactions, useful for financial reporting and audits

The dashboard chart breaks each month’s activity into three lines:

• Total revenue — the full contract value processed
• Freelancer earnings — the portion paid out to freelancers
• Platform earnings — the fee retained by the platform