Who is this article for?
This article will be useful to you if are a company on PartnerStack looking to create a one-time, manual commission for a partner.
What are manual commissions?
Manual commissions are comissions created manually by you, the company, rather than created automatically by your offer triggers.
You may want to create a manual commission for a partner to backfill a missed commission, or to offer a special one-time commission to a partner as an additional perk or thank you.
Manually creating transactions vs commissions
Manual commissions are best for creating one-off commissions, or commissions for customers or events that you only wish to issue one commission for (i.e. backfilling commissions for an offer structure where commissions are only generated on the first purchase).
If a customer was not tracked in PartnerStack and you would like to pay the partner for the lifetime of the customer or for the customer's ongoing subscription it is best to manually add the customer, and transaction for commissions to be issued automatically moving forward.
Manually creating a transaction will fire any applicable triggers, and automatically create a commission. Manually adding the customer ensures any future transactions are tracked to the customer and partner and commissions are automatically based on your offer structure.
For more information on how to add a customer and transaction in-app to trigger your existing offer structure see our Adding a customer, recording a sale, and changing customer attribution support guide.
Creating a manual commission
If you would like to create a one-off manual commission for a partner:
- Log in to your PartnerStack account
- Click into the Partner Management > "All partners" tab on the left-hand side
- Locate the partner using the search bar (by name, email, or partner key)
- Click on their name to open up the "Partner Details" view, and then select "Manual commissions"
- In the drawer view that opens, enter the commission description and amount, currency and connect the commission to a customer in PartnerStack (if applicable)
- Click "Create Commission" to finalize commission creation
Viewing and invoicing manual commissions
Once you have created your manual commission it will appear both in your Commissions & Invoices > Review Commissions tab for your review, and in the partner's detail view "Commissions" tab. The commission will also be visible to the partner in their Commissions tab.
To learn more about reviewing comissions, see Reviewing partner commissions.
The manual commission will be pulled onto your next partner commission invoice and will be paid out following the regular payment schedule. Manual commissions are not paid separately.
If your partner commission invoice is pending (1-7th of each month) and you would like to add a manual commission to the invoice you can move the manual commission to the current invoice, or create a manual commission directly on the invoice.
For more information on how to make changes to a pending invoice see the Partner commission invoices support guide.
Manual commission best practices
- Enter a detailed commission description: When entering the description for a manual commission it is a good practice to fill this out with as much detail as possible. This description gives you and the partner insight into what the commission is for and can prevent future questions or confusion.
- Connect a customer when applicable: If you are creating a manual commission for a transaction that did not show in PartnerStack, we recommend attaching the reference customer to provide clarity and make it easier to reconcile commissions and customers.
- Tell the partner when to expect their commission: When creating a manual commission for a partner let them know that the commission will be paid out following the regular payment schedule and they can view an "Estimated payment date" next to the commission in their dashboard.