Commissions is where you set up how salespeople earn commission, track the commission events that result from won work, and see what you still owe. It connects your sales results to payroll, so earned commissions flow through to paychecks.
Where to find Commissions
From the left sidebar choose HR & Payroll, then Commissions.
The page has three tabs: Plans, Events, and Liability.
Plans — the rules that say who earns what
Each plan attaches a salesperson (and optionally a project) to a commission formula. To create one, right-click the grid and choose New Plan. The plan dialog covers:
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Plan Name | A descriptive name, e.g. "Standard Sales Commission — 2.5% of Contract Value." |
| Salesperson | Who earns under this plan. (Only employees flagged as salespeople appear.) |
| Project (optional) | Scope the plan to one project, or leave blank for a general plan. |
| Posting COA (optional) | The Chart of Accounts account commission expense posts to; individual events can override it. |
| Status / Effective Date / End Date | When the plan is in force. |
| Plan Type | The formula shape — % of Contract, % of Revenue, Flat / Event, Flat / Project, or Tiered %. |
| Rate (and tier fields) | The percentage or flat amount; tiered plans add a second rate and the threshold where it kicks in. |
| Earning / Payment Trigger & Payment Period | When commission is earned versus when it's paid — on close, per paycheck, monthly, quarterly, or annually. |
| Approval Required / Approval Role | Whether events need a manager or VP sign-off, or post automatically. |
When editing an existing plan, the dialog also shows its running Earned / Paid / Remaining totals.
Right-click a plan for its lifecycle actions: Edit Plan, Generate Events (for that plan), Add (copy this row), Set Active / Set Inactive, Archive, and Delete.
Events — the ledger of amounts earned
The Events tab is the commission ledger — one row per amount earned. Each row shows the Salesperson, Plan, Project, Task, Posting COA, Amount (green for earnings, red for reversals or clawbacks), Date, Status, the Payroll run it's attached to, and Notes. A pinned totals row at the bottom sums the amount across everything currently filtered.
Generating events
Events are created from plans. Right-click the Events grid and choose Generate Events… to open the Generate Events dialog, which evaluates your active plans against won work and creates the resulting commission events in bulk. You can also generate for a single plan from the Plans tab's right-click menu.
The event lifecycle — pending, posted, voided
- Pending — earned but not yet paid. A pending event can be voided (with a reason) or deleted.
- Posted — attached to a payroll run and paid (or being paid). Posting happens from the Commissions tile in the Payroll Control Center, where you assign eligible pending events to the run. A posted event shows its payroll number in the grid.
- Right-click a posted event to Detach from payroll (un-post it back to pending) or Void… it. Voiding a posted event reverses the plan's paid/remaining totals.
- Voided / Reversed — removed from the workflow, with the reason recorded in the activity log.
Liability — what you still owe
The Liability tab rolls up outstanding commission obligations — what's been earned but not yet paid out — so you can see your commission liability at a glance and reconcile it against the plans' Earned / Paid / Remaining totals.
How Commissions connect to the rest of the app
- Sales Pipeline. Commission plans attach to salespeople and the deals they win — see Sales Pipeline.
- Payroll. Pending events are assigned to a run on the Commissions tile of the Payroll Control Center — often on a Commission payroll type.
- General Ledger. The Posting COA on the plan (or an event-level override) decides where commission expense lands when the run posts.
Permissions
Commission capabilities are separately permission-controlled — viewing, creating plans, updating, posting events to payroll, and voiding. Menu items you don't have permission for simply don't appear. See Roles & Permissions.
Tips & best practices
- One plan per arrangement. If a rep has different terms on different projects, give each project its own plan rather than editing one plan back and forth.
- Void, don't delete, posted history. Deleting is only for pending mistakes; anything that touched payroll should be voided so the reason stays on record.
- Watch the Liability tab before month-end — it's the quickest read on accrued commissions you haven't paid.
Common questions
Why doesn't my plan generate any events? The plan must be active, within its effective dates, and matched to won work. Inactive or archived plans are skipped.
How does an event get paid? Assign it to a payroll run on the Commissions tile in the Payroll Control Center. When the run pays out, the event is posted with that payroll's number.
Can I un-post an event? Yes — right-click it and choose Detach from payroll, as long as the run itself hasn't been finalized past that point.
Related topics
- Sales Pipeline — the deals that generate commission.
- Payroll — where earned commissions are paid.
- Payroll Types — the Commission run type.