Disputes and holds

When a participant believes a delivered statement is wrong, they raise a dispute against it. The dispute is a governed review case with an owner, a due date, a full history, and an optional payment hold that withholds only the disputed amount while the case is open. Disputes are part of the Disputes module.

The dispute card shows the owner, the service level and the amount withheld from payment.

Participants choose the line, category, priority and amount when they submit a dispute.

Response targets are set per dispute category and priority.

Before you start

• Switch on the Disputes module in Commission Feature Management. When it is off, the dispute actions are hidden on the statement and dispute commands are refused with BAA-FEATURE-OFF. See Turn features on as you grow.
• A dispute is always raised against a statement that was made available (status Delivered or Disputed). See Participant and manager statements.
• Participants need access to their own participant record. Reviewers need a Manager and descendants or Finance (all participants) scope over the participant. See Roles and permissions.
• Optionally review the deadlines and SLAs described below.

Raise a dispute (participant)

1. Open Commission Statements and open the delivered statement.
2. Choose Submit dispute. To prepare the case first, choose Save dispute draft instead.
3. In Commission Review Action, fill in Request a review:

Field	What to enter
Statement line number	The snapshot line you dispute, or zero to dispute an explicit amount across the statement.
Review category	MISSING-CREDIT, WRONG-RECIPIENT, WRONG-SPLIT, SOURCE-VALUE, CLASSIFICATION, RATE, QUOTA, ELIGIBILITY, EARNING, ADJUSTMENT, PAYMENT or PLAN-INTERPRETATION.
Priority	LOW, NORMAL, HIGH or URGENT.
Amount to review	The amount that needs review. Selecting a line proposes its amount, which you can reduce. It cannot exceed the selected scope (BAA-DSP-AMOUNT-001).
Review note	An optional note.
Attachment reference, Attachment hash	Optional reference to a document in your controlled document store and its SHA-256 hash.

1. Choose OK. The new case opens on the Commission Dispute card.

A submitted case has the status Open, and the first submitted case marks the statement Disputed. A draft stays in Draft until you choose Submit draft on the dispute card. Nothing is reviewed and the statement is not marked disputed while it is a draft.

If Statement Dispute Days is set in Commission Workflow Setup and the window has passed, submission is refused with BAA-DSP-DEADLINE-001.

Review a dispute

Reviewers work from Commission Disputes, which shows each case with its Status, Overdue flag, Priority Code, Category Code, Due At, Requested Amount and Scoped Hold Amount.

1. Open the case and choose Assign review. Select the Owner user name and confirm Due at, which is proposed from the dispute SLA. The case moves to Investigating.
2. While investigating, use the Review actions. Each one asks for a reason code and is recorded in the history:
   • Wait for participant or Wait for company when you need information, and Resume investigation when it arrives.
   • Resolve without adjustment when the statement is correct.
   • Deny dispute when the claim is rejected.
   • Resolve with resolution type for any other outcome (see below).
3. After a decision, choose Close review to close a Resolved, Accepted or Denied case.

Choose Review history at any time to see every action with its from and to status, reason code, amounts and evidence hash. Choose Statement to open the exact statement under review.

Resolution types

Resolution type	Result
EXPLANATION-ONLY, PLAN-CLARIFICATION, NO-CHANGE	The case is resolved without a financial change.
DATA-CORRECTION	Routed to a correction request.
CREDIT-TRANSFER, EARNING-ADJUSTMENT	Routed to a manual correction.
PAYMENT-ADJUSTMENT	Routed to an off-cycle settlement.

For a financial type, create the correction document first and enter its number in Correction document no.. The dispute never changes an amount itself. The case becomes Pending Approval while the document awaits approval or processing. Choose Check routed correction later: a completed correction moves the case to Accepted, a cancelled or failed one returns it to Investigating, and one still in progress is refused with BAA-DSP-RESOLVE-004. See Returns and corrections.

Appeals and withdrawal

• The participant can Appeal a Resolved or Denied case once, within Dispute Appeal Days. The case becomes Appealed, and a reviewer chooses Reopen appealed case (back to Investigating) or Deny dispute.
• The participant can Withdraw a draft or active case with a reason. A case with an active payment hold can be withdrawn only after finance releases the hold.

Payment holds

A payment hold keeps the disputed amount out of payment while the case is open, without stopping the rest of the participant's pay.

1. On the dispute card, choose Apply payment hold.
2. Enter Amount to hold (at most the requested amount) and a reason code, and confirm.
3. The app moves exactly that amount from Payable to Held on the frozen settlement lines behind the statement. The Scoped Hold Amount shows what is withheld.

Holds can be applied while the case is Open, Investigating or waiting, and stay in place while a routed correction is Pending Approval. Choose Release payment hold to return the exact held amount to Payable. You must release the hold before you resolve, deny or close the case.

By default only the disputed line or amount can be held. If Hold Whole Statement is on in Commission Workflow Setup, reviewers can instead choose Hold whole statement to withhold the whole statement payable for the case. A hold is refused with BAA-DSP-HOLD-OUTPUT-001 when an affected payroll-ready export is still awaiting acknowledgement.

Dispute statuses

Status	Meaning
Draft	Saved by the participant, not yet submitted.
Open	Submitted and waiting for an owner.
Investigating	Assigned and under review.
Waiting for Participant, Waiting for Company	Paused for information.
Pending Approval	A routed correction is being approved or processed.
Resolved, Accepted, Denied	Decided. Accepted means the routed correction completed.
Appealed	The participant appealed the decision.
Closed, Withdrawn	Finished.

A statement cannot be accepted or recorded as paid while any of its cases is Open, Investigating, waiting, Pending Approval or Appealed.

Deadlines and SLAs

Open Commission Dispute SLAs to set response targets per category:

Field	What it does
Response Hours	Hours from assignment to the due date for NORMAL and LOW priority.
High Priority Hours, Urgent Priority Hours	Hours for HIGH and URGENT cases. Zero uses Response Hours.
Escalate To Manager	Escalates overdue cases in this category to the participant's manager.

In Commission Workflow Setup, Default Dispute SLA Hours applies when a category has no SLA row, Escalate Overdue Disputes switches escalation on, and Dispute Appeal Days sets the appeal window. Escalation runs from the workflow deadline job. Choose Create deadline job in Commission Workflow Setup to create its hourly job queue entry, which is created on hold for you to activate.

Ask about a dispute (AI draft)

If the dispute inquiry assistant is enabled in Commission AI Setup and has an Active DISPUTE-INQUIRY consent, the dispute card offers Ask about this dispute. Choose a topic (where the dispute stands, what amounts are under review, or what happens next) to get a labeled draft answer built only from allowlisted, redacted fields. The draft never changes the dispute. You can optionally add it as a comment. See AI plan design assistant.

How it works behind the scenes

• Each case and each history entry is hashed and chained. Every action checks the exact State Version No. and Evidence Hash, so a decision on a stale copy is refused.
• Hold and release movements are appended to the commission balance ledger. Nothing is edited in place.
• Assignment, updates, escalation, hold and release raise notifications to the people involved. See Approvals and notifications.

Related pages

• Participant and manager statements
• My Commission for sales reps
• Returns and corrections
• Settlements and pay groups