Commissions overview
A commission is a fee paid to a third party who sells products on your behalf. In Smile, you can pay commission on accounts, subscriptions and charge types. Smile supports leading commission and trailing commission types.
- commission earners—represent a person who is paid commission.
- commission structures—specify the commission rates that you pay to a commission earner.
- agents—associate a commission structure with a commission earner.
Each agent contains one or more commission earners, and each commission earner is associated with a commission structure. Agents let you easily assign multiple commission earners to the same account or subscription.
The following diagram shows the relationship between agents, commission earners, accounts and subscriptions.
Figure: Agents and commission earners
Example: Agents, commission earners and commission structures
This example shows you how to use agents, commission earners and commission structures to set up a common commission scenario.
Ben and Susan work in the sales team at Example Telecom. Susan is Ben's manager, and Susan and Ben are both salespeople. When a salesperson signs up a new customer, they receive a 10% commission and their manager receives a 2% commission.
- Create an agent for Ben, add Ben as a commission earner with a 10% commission structure and add Susan as a commission earner with a 2% commission structure. Add the Ben agent to any subscription that Ben sells. Both Ben and Susan now receive commission on each sale that Ben makes.
- Create an agent for Susan and add Susan as a commission earner with a 10% commission structure. Add the Susan agent to any subscription that Susan sells. Susan now earns commission on each sale that she makes.
The following diagram shows you the commission earners in each agent.
Figure: Agents for Susan and Ben
