Draws and guarantees

A draw or guarantee makes sure a participant receives at least a set amount per period, even when commission is lower. Bitta Commission tops up the participant's other earnings to the floor at period close, and, if the draw is recoverable, recovers the advance from later periods' commission. This page explains how to set up draws and guarantees, how the draw ledger works, and how draws flow into settlement.

Before you start

• Switch on Advanced commission models in Commission Feature Management. Draw and Guarantee are advanced models.
• The participant needs another commission component in the same plan version, because the draw tops up the participant's other earnings for the period.
• Agree the recovery policy with your finance and legal owners before you set it up. Rules on recovering advances from employees differ between countries, and the app records the policy you choose; it does not decide it.

The setup wizard creates a draw plan with the style Draw against commission: a percent-of-sales component plus a Draw component. See Guided setup wizard.

Draw and Guarantee

Both models use the same calculation: they compare the participant's other earnings for the period with a floor and pay the difference.

Setting	Non-recoverable	Recoverable
Top-up when earnings are below the floor	Paid and kept by the participant.	Paid as an advance and recorded on the draw ledger.
Later periods with earnings above the floor	Nothing is recovered.	Part of the excess is recovered until the advance is repaid.

You choose between recoverable and non-recoverable with the Recoverable setting. At period close, base models are calculated first, then manager overrides, then guarantees, then draws. The floor therefore compares against the final base and override earnings of the period.

Set up a draw

1. On the Draft plan version, add a component with the model Draw (or Guarantee).
2. Choose Rates and enter the floor per period in Amount (Company Currency). A positive target on a participant's calculation period row replaces this amount for that participant.
3. In Model Settings, set the recovery options:

Field	What it does
Recoverable	The top-up is an advance recovered from later periods' earnings above the protected minimum.
Recovery Percent	The percent of the excess recovered each period. Zero recovers the whole excess.
Recovery Limit Amount	The maximum recovered per period. Zero means no limit.
Protected Minimum	The earnings a participant keeps before any recovery is taken.

1. Publish the plan version. Draws are calculated by Close Commission Period. See Bonuses and SPIFFs for how period closes work.

Worked example

A recoverable draw of 2,000.00 per period on top of a 5 percent commission, with no recovery percent, limit or protected minimum.

Period	Sales	Commission	Draw earning	Draw balance after close
1	20,000.00	1,000.00	1,000.00 (top-up)	1,000.00
2	30,000.00	1,500.00	500.00 (top-up)	1,500.00
3	60,000.00	3,000.00	-1,000.00 (recovery)	500.00

In period 3, commission exceeds the floor by 1,000.00. Because the protected amount is the floor (2,000.00), the available excess is 1,000.00, and it is recovered from the outstanding balance. In each period the participant receives at least 2,000.00 in total.

With a non-recoverable draw, periods 1 and 2 pay the same top-ups, but nothing is recovered in period 3.

Commission Draw Balances

Commission Draw Balances shows the outstanding recoverable advance for each participant, rebuilt from the draw ledger after every period close and waiver. For each participant you see the total advances, the total recovered, the total waived, the outstanding balance, the date of the oldest advance, the governing component, the protected amount, the next recovery date and the latest recovery exception.

If a period closes with an outstanding balance and nothing is recovered because earnings stayed within the protected amount, the app raises a recovery exception (BAA-DRAW-RECOVERY-DEFERRED) so finance can follow up.

Commission Draw Ledger

Commission Draw Ledger (from Draw Ledger on the balances page) lists every movement:

Entry type	Effect on the balance
Advance	Raises the recoverable balance.
Recovery	Lowers the balance from later earnings.
Waiver	Writes off part of the balance.

Entries are append-only and hashed. Re-running a period close appends only the differences, so it never double counts. Choose Earning to open the draw or guarantee earning that moved the balance.

Waive a draw balance

When the business decides not to recover part of an advance, for example when a participant leaves:

1. On Commission Draw Ledger, select the participant and component and choose Waive Balance.
2. On Waive Draw Balance, enter the Amount to Waive, the Waiver Date and a Reason.

The waiver cannot exceed the outstanding balance. It is appended as a Waiver entry; the original advance is never deleted.

How draws net in settlement

A draw or guarantee produces a normal earning on its component. A top-up is a positive earning, and a recovery is a negative earning in the period it is taken. These earnings flow through eligibility, balances and settlement like any other earning, so the settlement for a period shows the participant's commission and the draw result together, and the net amount is what is exported to payroll or paid through payables. See Settlements and pay groups.

The draw ledger is a separate record of the advance position. It does not replace the commission ledger.

What to check if it goes wrong

Symptom	What to do
No draw earning after a calculation run	Expected. Draws are calculated by Close Commission Period.
The top-up is larger than expected	Check whether the participant has a positive target on the calculation period, which replaces the floor amount.
BAA-DRAW-WAIVER-BALANCE	The waiver is larger than the outstanding balance.
Nothing is recovered in a strong period	Check the Protected Minimum, the Recovery Percent and the Recovery Limit Amount.

Related pages

• Bonuses and SPIFFs
• Advanced models
• Settlements and pay groups
• Clawbacks and recoveries