How commission gets recognized: the earning ladder
A commission line doesn't jump straight from won to paid — it climbs a ladder, so you can see exactly how real each dollar 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 deal 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 deal 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 deal 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 deal is invoiced, then becomes Earned. The most conservative: you pay once the customer is billed.
The invoice check is automatic — with an honest override
For plans that earn on invoice, the module checks your PSA — Autotask, ConnectWise, or HaloPSA — to see whether the deal has actually been invoiced, and moves the line to Earned when it has. You don't have to babysit it.
But it's honest about its limits: some deal-and-reference combinations can't be matched to an invoice automatically, and those stay Pending invoice rather than pretending to be checked. 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." The module never silently guesses an invoice into existence.