How commission gets recognized: the earning ladder
Each commission line climbs a ladder (Quote won, Pending kickoff or Pending invoice, Earned, Payable, Paid) with a 6-month clawback watch. The plan's trigger decides when Earned fires, and 'on invoice' is checked against your PSA.
A commission line doesn't jump straight from won to paid. It climbs a ladder, so you can see exactly how real each line is at any moment. Every line on a statement carries one of these states, and it only ever moves forward:
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Quote won | The opportunity closed. The line exists, but hasn't met the plan's earn trigger yet. |
| Pending kickoff | The plan earns on kickoff, and the kickoff or post-sale ticket hasn't happened yet. |
| Pending invoice | The plan earns on invoice, and the opportunity hasn't been invoiced in your PSA yet. |
| Earned | The trigger has been met, the work is real. The line is now the rep's to be paid. |
| Payable | The statement carrying this line has been approved. It's cleared to pay on the pay date. |
| Paid | The pay date has passed. This is the end of the ladder. |
What decides when a line is Earned
The plan's earn trigger sets the rung a line starts on and what has to happen for it to reach Earned:
- On quote-won. The line is Earned the moment the opportunity closes. Simplest, most generous, and hardest to claw back.
- On kickoff or post-sale ticket (the default), the line sits at Pending kickoff until the kickoff or post-sale ticket appears, then becomes Earned. Credits the rep when delivery actually begins.
- On invoice. The line sits at Pending invoice until the opportunity is invoiced, then becomes Earned. The most conservative: you pay once the customer is billed.
The invoice check is automatic, with a manual override
For plans that earn on invoice, the module checks your PSA (Autotask, ConnectWise, HaloPSA, or Syncro) to see whether the opportunity has actually been invoiced, and moves the line to Earned when it has. You don't have to babysit it.
It has limits: some opportunity-and-reference combinations can't be matched to an invoice automatically, and those stay Pending invoice rather than moving to Earned on a guess. When that happens, a sales leader can mark the line invoiced with one click. A manual override that says "I've confirmed this was billed."