Before you fire off checks to your partners, you’ll want to double-check that their payments look correct. Here’s how to approve and pay partner commissions.
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Approving and paying commissions
- How to review pending commissions
- The way to approve or cancel commissions
- Steps for paying approved commissions
- How to mark commissions as paid
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Transcript
When a partner refers a sale, Ontraport creates a commission for them. Before you pay anyone, check that each commission is valid. Paying partners takes two steps. First you approve commissions, then you pay your partners. One thing to know up front: Ontraport never sends money for you. It tracks what you owe, and you pay partners yourself.
Every sale a partner makes shows up as its own line in Pending commissions. Go to Partners, then Commissions, then Pending commissions.
Give each commission a quick check. You can see a partner's sales and totals on the Referral Info tab of their contact record. Partner programs can attract abuse, like someone referring themselves to get a discount. So look out for things like a partner and a buyer with the same last name. And if you offer a refund guarantee, consider waiting until it ends before you approve.
Select one or more commissions, then choose an action. Approve marks a commission as valid and moves it to Pending payments. Cancel rejects it and removes it from your commission collections and the partner's data. You can also email the partner, or export the commission data as a CSV file.
Next, go to Partners, then Commissions, then Pending payments. Here you see one line for each partner, with everything you've approved for them.
If you pay by PayPal, select your partners and click Download PayPal CSV. That gives you a PayPal mass pay file, which you upload to PayPal to pay many partners at once. The file may be blank for a partner who hasn't reached your pay threshold, or who has no PayPal address on their contact record. If you pay by check or another method, export the commission data first, so you have the amounts.
Once you've paid them, select those partners and click Pay partner. This doesn't send any money. It only marks their commissions as Paid and removes them from Pending payments. So always download or export first, then click Pay partner.
Approved and paid commissions both appear in Commission history, under Partners, then Commissions. If you approved one by mistake, select it and click Unapprove to send it back to Pending commissions. You can't unapprove a commission once it's paid. And canceling a paid commission doesn't get the money back for you.
If you refund a sale, the commission adjusts. If you haven't paid the partner yet, the amount is simply subtracted from their earnings. If you already paid them, Ontraport creates a clawback. That's a negative commission that comes out of their future commissions. It shows as "Refund pending" in the partner's Commissions Earned list, and it only becomes a negative commission once you select it and click Approve.
So: review your pending commissions, approve the valid ones, pay partners yourself by PayPal mass pay file or check, and then click Pay partner to mark them as paid. Next up, you'll create a partner center, where partners log in to see their referrals and commissions.
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