Once you have your partner program set up and your partners are making sales, you will need to manage and pay your partner commissions.

Paying partners is a two-step process: first you'll approve the commission, then you'll pay your partners.

Table of contents

Step 1: Approve commissions
Step 2: Pay partners
Manage commissions

Step 1: Approve commissions

Every sale your partner makes appears as a line in your Pending commissions collection. 

1. Go to Partners → Commissions → Pending commissions.
2. Select one or more commissions and take any of the following actions:
   • Approve - Mark the commission as valid and move it to the Pending commissions collection.
   • Email - Send a message to your partner.
   • Export - Download your commission data as a CSV file.
   • Cancel - Reject the commission.  Remove it from the commission collections and from your partner’s data.

Step 2: Pay partners

Back to top

Once you’ve approved your commissions, you can pay your partner. You’ll do this from the Pending payments collection.  Unlike the Pending commissions collection, you’ll see only a single line for each of your partners with the total amount of approved commissions, rather than seeing a separate line for each earned commission.

It’s important to know that the Pay partner action marks a commission as paid, but it does not automate paying your partner. The action will mark the commission’s status as “Paid” and it will be removed from the Pending payments collection. 

• If you pay your partners via PayPal, make sure you always download the PayPal mass pay file before clicking the Pay partner action.
  • This file may appear blank if your partner has not met your pay threshold or does not have an address saved in their PayPal address field.
• If you pay your partners via check or other method, we recommend exporting your commission information before clicking the Pay partner action.

Here’s how to pay partners:

1. Go to Partners → Commissions → Pending payments.
2. Select one or more commissions and take any of the following actions:
   • Pay partner — This action marks a commission as “Paid,” but it does not automatically pay your partner. Be sure to either export or download the PayPal mass pay file before clicking this button.
   • Email - Send a message to your partner.
   • Download PayPal CSV - Download a PayPal mass pay file to upload and pay your partners.
   • Export - Download a CSV file of your commission data.

Manage commissions

Back to top

Once the status of a commission is “Approved” or “Paid,” it will appear in the Commission history collection in your account. You’ll see each of the individual commissions earned as its own line item. 

1. Go to Partners → Commissions → Commission history.
2. Select one or more commissions and take any of the following actions:
   • Unapprove - If the commission has the status “Approved,” you can click this action to unapprove it. This will move the commission back to the Pending commissions collection. You cannot unapprove commissions with the status “Paid,” but you can refund a transaction in the contact's record. Check out pro tip #2 to see what happens when you refund a transaction on which your partner earned a commission.
   • Email - Send a message to your partner.
   • Export - Download a CSV file of your commission data.
   • Cancel - Remove the commission from the commission collections and from your partner’s data. If the commission was already paid, this does not automatically return the paid commission to you.