Reviewing partner commissions

Who is this article for?

This article will be useful to you if are a company on PartnerStack looking to review your partners' commissions.

Reviewing commissions overview

While your partners are promoting your business and earning commissions, you have the ability to review those commissions as they come in before your partner commission invoice is generated at the end of the month.

On the partner's dashboard, earned commissions will have a "pending" status until they are approved or declined by your company. 

To view your partner's pending commissions navigate to your Commissions & Invoices tab in your left-hand menu and click into the 'Review Commissions' sub-tab. 

Here you will be able to: 

• View a list of pending commissions for the current month
• Review commission details such as customer information, the created date, and the commission amount
• Approve, decline or place commissions on hold before the invoice is created

For a video walkthrough of reviewing your partners' commissions see the Company dashboard: Video walkthroughs.

Commission statuses

Commissions in your Review commissions tab can have the following statuses:

Viewing commission details

To view details about a commission, you can click anywhere on the line item you want to view. This will open a side "Commission details" window which includes:

• The commission's current status: new, approved, declined, hold, paid
• Information on the commission: commission description, partner name & group, customer & email, purchase and commission amount, date created, and offer description
• A quick link to the partner who earned the commission
• If applicable, a quick link to the offer trigger that generated the commission
• The option to update the status of the commission if the commission is "new" "declined" or on "hold" 
  • Approved commission statuses cannot be updated. If a commission has been marked as "Approved" in error it can be deleted from your partner invoice once generated

Commission statuses (new, declined, and hold) can be updated from the Commission details view by clicking "Update commission status", or commissions can be updated in bulk from the Review commissions tab.

Searching and filtering commissions

The Review commissions tab can be searched and filtered to help you quickly find specific commissions. Commissions can be searched by partner, customer, transaction key, or commission key. Commissions can be filtered by partner, group, customer, status, date, description, and decline reason. 

Commisssions on hold

If commissions are on hold for suspicious activity a banner will appear at the top of your Review commissions tab. In this flagged banner, click "View commissions" to automatically filter for commissions that have been placed on hold as the partner has been flagged as suspicious. 

Click "Open in All Partners" to be redirected to your All Partners tab filtered for partners with held commissions due to suspicious activity, or "Fraud Management" to be redirected to your Fraud Management tab where you can review your partner's fraud flags. 

For more information on your Fraud management tab and how to review a partner's activity see the Using Fraud Management support guide.

Bulk updating commissions

Multiple commissions can be selected at a time and updated from new, declined, held, or paid statuses to one new status. When selecting commissions, your view can be updated from displaying 25 commissions at a time to 50 or 100 commissions using the drop-down in the bottom right-hand corner.

"Approved" commission statuses cannot be updated. If a commission has been marked as "Approved" in error it can be deleted from your partner invoice once generated. Commissions with a "Declined", "Hold" or "Paid" status can be later updated to any status. 

To bulk approve commissions:

1. Navigate to your Commissions & Invoices > Review commissions tab
2. Click the checkbox next to all commissions you would like to approve
3. Click "Update selected commissions"
4. In the drawer view that opens select "Approved"
5. Click "Update status"

Note: Approving commissions cannot be undone. All commissions marked as approved will automatically be pulled onto your next invoice. If commissions are approved in error and pulled onto an invoice they can be deleted once the invoice has been generated.

To bulk decline commissions:

1. Navigate to your Commissions & Invoices > Review commissions tab
2. Click the checkbox next to all commissions you would like to decline
3. Click "Update selected commissions"
4. In the drawer view that opens select "Declined" 
5. Select a declined reason from the drop-down, or enter a custom decline reason that will be visible to the partner(s). The entered decline reason will be applied to all selected commissions in the bulk update
6. Click "Update status"

To mark commissions as "paid" in bulk:

1. Navigate to your Commissions & Invoices > Review commissions tab
2. Click the checkbox next to all commissions you would like to update to mark as already paid out to the partner
3. Click "Update selected commissions"
4. In the drawer view that opens select "Paid" 
5. Click "Update status"

Approving all new commissions

You have the option of approving all new commissions by clicking on "Approve new commissions (###)" and confirming the approval in the window that appears.

Approved commissions will automatically pulled onto your partner invoice when it is generated at the end of the month.

Placing commissions on hold

If you need additional time to verify a commission in your internal systems the commission can be placed on "Hold" either individually, or in bulk.

When placing commissions on hold, you will be prompted to provide a message to partners detailing why their commission is being held "i.e. customer purchase not completed, requires investigation, etc". For this reason, we recommend placing commissions on hold individually, rather than in bulk, unless the commissions all have the same hold reason.

To place a commission on hold:

1. Click on the individual commission you would like to place on hold, or multi-select commissions that have the same hold reason and click "Update selected commissions"
2. Select "Hold"  as the new commission status
3. In the "Reason" drop-down select "Custom" or "Requires investigation"
   1. If you select "Requires investigation" a message will auto-populate "The source of this commission requires further investigation."
4. Customize the hold reason to keep your partner(s) informed
5. Click "Update status"

Once you have confirmed if the commmission(s) should be paid out you can update the commission status to "Approved" or "Declined". 

Commissions manually placed on hold will remain held until you mark them as "Approved" or "Declined". We recommend periodically reviewing and actioning held commissions.

The partner's view of commission statuses

As a commission progresses through the review and payment schedule, the partner can see the following statuses in their dashboard along with an estimated payment date:

• Pending Approval: The commission has not yet been approved
• On hold: The commission has been placed on hold for further validation. Commissions can be placed on hold by teammates for further investigation or can be placed on hold automatically if the partner is flagged as potentially fraudulent
• Declined: The commission has been declined 
• Approved & pending payment: The commission has been approved but not yet paid for
• Funds Available: The commission has been paid is available for the partner to withdraw
• Withdrawn: The commission has been withdrawn

Reviewing commission FAQs

Do I need to manually approve all of my commissions?

No, you do not need to manually approve all commissions for them to be pulled onto an invoice at the end of the month. PartnerStack will automatically approve all eligible commissions (status of “New” and created during the current invoice cycle) and add them to the current invoice at the end of each month when the invoice is generated.

That said, proactively approving commissions throughout the month can reduce the amount of time you need to spend reviewing your invoice once it has been generated, and can improve relationships with partners.

I accidentally approved a commission, can I decline an approved commission?

No, an approved commission cannot be updated to a different status. If a commission has been marked as "Approved" in error it can be deleted from your partner invoice once generated.

Can I update the status of a commission if it has already been declined?

Yes, a “Declined” commission can be updated to any other status.

What happens when I approve a commission?

When a commission is approved, it will automatically be pulled onto your next commission invoice which is generated at the end of the month. Your partner will also see the commission status in their dashboard update from "Pending" to "Approved and pending payment". When the invoice has been charged, the partner's commission status will update to "Available to withdraw". The partner is not emailed when a commission is approved.

What happens when I decline a commission?

When you decline a commission you will be prompted to enter a reason why the commission is not valid. This reason is provided to the partner in their dashboard and the commission status in the partner's view will show "Declined". The partner is not emailed when a commission is declined.

Can I bulk-approve commissions?

Yes, you can bulk-approve commissions by using the checkboxes to select multiple commissions and approve or decline them as necessary.

Declining multiple commissions will require a decline reason to be provided. This decline reason will be applied to all selected commissions.

What happens to commissions if I don’t approve or decline before the invoice is generated?

PartnerStack will automatically approve all eligible commissions (status of “New” and generated during the current invoice cycle) at the point of invoice creation.

Can I remove a commission line from an invoice?

Yes, you can remove commissions from an invoice during the invoice review period. For more information on managing your commission invoice see the Partner commission invoices