Introduction

This guide will explain how you you can setup your outgoing commission payments. Outgoing commission payments in eKeeper CRM are handled using participants. You can use participants to setup rules for how their payments are automatically calculated. 

eKeeper handles commissions on incoming and outgoing perspectives.

  • What are Incoming commissions - These are fees that you earn on your products e.g. proc fee, broker fee etc. 

  • What are Outgoing commissions - An outgoing commission value is calculated as a portion of the full incoming commission amount. These amounts are paid to introducers, advisers etc. 

How are commission amounts calculated?

Outgoing commission amounts are associated with participants, so in order to pay an individual, they must be added to the product in question as a participant.


Participant Panel

The participants panel contains a list of the currently associated participants for the product you are currently viewing. 

To add a participant to your product click the Add Participant link (figure 2)


Figure 2 - Add Participant link

Below is a description of the columns of information that are displayed against each participant:

  • Type - This is the role that the participant plays in this product e.g. estate agent, adviser, introducer etc. 

  • Name - this is the name of the individual participant listed

  • Company - This is the company that the participant is affiliated with 

  • Due Commission - Some participants are involved in the case, but are not likely to receive commission. If this is blank then this means that this participant is not due any commission on this product.

  • Total Commission - if the participant has been setup to receive commission then the total that his participant is due to receive on this product is listed here.

  • Contact - If you have contact information entered against this participant then a number of logos will appear. These will allow you to send an email, send an SMS, produce a document or visit the participant's website. 

  • Action - The action column contains an edit link which is what can be used to view detailed information against this participant or disable the commissions calculation for this participant, on this product



Figure 1 - Participants Panel on a product

Configuring your participant commissions

You will now see the New Participant window (right). There are a number panels on this page, these will explained in turn below:

Participant Commissions Panel

The participant commissions panel is where you can setup rules for how a participant is paid against particular fees in your cases. 

A fee is an incoming amount that you receive into your products. These are then used to calculate what a participant is going to receive. The system calculates a participants split based on the rules associated with that participant.



Figure 12 - Participant Commissions Panel

Participant Commissions Panel Breakdown

The Commissions Panel contains a number of different components which are explained below.


Product tabs 

The Product tabs (figure 12a) across the top of the panel represent the different products that are currently setup in your system. Each Product will have a number of associated fees and so you will need to apply rules against each product type and against each fee.


Figure 12a - Product Tabs

Participant Commission Rules

Participant rules (figure 12b) are the row headings for each rule that can be applied to a fee. 

INFORMATION:

  • Don't automatically add this participant - Sets the participant so that a user has to search for and add this participant manually to their products in the future

  • Always add this participant - Sets the participant so that this participant is added automatically when ever you save this product for the first time.

  • Add this participant according to Participant type rules - Earlier you set this participant as a particular type e.g. introducer, solicitor etc. Participant types have auto add rules and this means that you can assign this participant to mimic the rules at a participant type level.

  • Commissionable - If selected against a fee, then this participant will be calculated commission for the relevant fee.

  • Default Payment Type - Here you have 3 options Remainder, Fixed Sum, Percentage. This can be used in conjunction with Default payment amount to set if this participant is paid a fixed amount of the fee, a percentage of the fee or the remaining amount after all other participants have been calculated their commission.

  • Claw back fund percentage - The claw back fund is allows you to withhold a percentage of this participants calculated commission. So if the fee claws back then this allows a fund to draw from.

  • Default Payment Order - This determines the order in which a participant is calculated their payment relative to all the other commissionable participants on the case. put a 1 if the participant is paid off the Gross fee amount, or increase this number if you wish this participant to be calculated off the net fee amount

  • Default Payment Instalments - if you wish to pay your participant in one lump sump then enter a 1 here or enter the number of monthly instalments you wish to pay them against.

  • Number if days after incoming payment is received to flag as due payment - This sets the due date for your participants commission and is based on when you receive the incoming fee on your product. Once the fee is received then the number in this box is used to calculate when the participant should be due their calculated commission amount.




Figure 12b - Participant commission Rules.

Fee columns

The fee columns (figure 12c) represent each of the fees for the currently selected product. If you enter rule values into the fields, then the rules will apply to the fee labelled at the top of the column. For example in figure 12c below we can see that this is the Proc fee, so all the rules we enter here will apply to the proc fee amount on a particular product. 




Figure 12c - Fee column (proc fee)

Example participant rules

This section provides some example rule sets for the commission rules setup against your participants

Participant paid a percentage on the gross fee

Scenario:

  • The participant should manually be added to products as they are an introducer and do not introduce all our products. 

  • The Introducer should be commissionable as they normally receive 10% of the gross proc fee.

  • The participant should be due their fee 15 days after the fee has been received.

Rules to setup in this scenario:

Participant paid a fixed amount on the net fee

Scenario:

  • The participant is an adviser who takes a £50 fixed amount from the net proc fee. 

  • The Adviser should be added to products based on the type of participants (adviser)

  • The adviser should be due their payment immediately after the incoming fee has been received. 

  • Their payment should be delivered over a 6 month period

  • The adviser's payment should be deducted 50% to product against the product clawing back. 

Rules to setup in this scenario:

Saving your participant

Once you have filled out all the panels where neccessary click the Save and Close button, which appears in the bottom navigation bar


Figure 13 - bottom navigation bar

The participant you have created will now be available for all future cases. If you have set your participant to automatically add to your products then your participant will start to add for any new product you create from this point forward. 


Tip

Once you have clicked save and close you can still change the rules and details for a participant by heading to Homepage > Address book > participants and searching for your desired participant.