Running a Month's Commission
A settlement run works out what each person earned in a period. You can run it as many times as you like while it's a draft; approving it freezes the numbers and books the cost.
Steps
- Open Sales → Commission Settlements. The date boxes default to last month, which is usually what you want to settle.
- Adjust Period from and Period to if you need a different range, then click Start run.
- The run opens on the People tab, one row per person who was on a plan during that period. Somebody with no sales still gets a row showing zero — an empty statement is an answer, and its absence would look like the run hadn't finished.
Reading a person's row
| Column | What it means |
|---|---|
| Collected | Money actually received in the period, excluding tax — cash and card taken at the till, plus customer payments applied to their credit sales |
| Returns | Returns of their sales in the period, at value excluding tax |
| Net base | Collected less returns — the figure the percentage is applied to |
| Uncollected credit | Credit they sold this period that nobody has paid yet. It earns nothing until the money comes in |
| Commission | Their rate applied to the net base |
Click any row to see the documents behind it — every sale, customer payment and return that made up the figure, with dates. That's the answer when someone asks why their number is what it is.
Uncollected credit is shown for exactly that reason: a rep who sold a large invoice on credit sees a small statement, and this column says why without them having to ask.
If the numbers look wrong
Click Recalculate. The run is rebuilt from your sales, receipts and returns as they stand right now — useful when you've just recorded a customer payment or approved a return that belongs in the period.
Recalculating only works on a draft. Once approved, a run can't be recalculated or deleted.
Approving
- Check the totals at the top: Commission, Paid, Outstanding, and how many people are in the run.
- Click Approve and confirm.
Approving does three things:
- Freezes the run, including the rate applied to each person.
- Records the commission as an expense in your Profit & Loss, in the period the sales were collected — not the month you got round to approving.
- Records the same amount as money owed to staff on your Balance Sheet.
You can only have one approved run per period, so a month can't accidentally be settled twice.
Negative statements
If someone's returns outrun their collections, their commission for the period is a negative number, shown in red. That's a genuine outcome, not an error: it reduces what the business owes them, and the shortfall comes off the next payment they're due. It is never quietly rounded up to zero.