Commission plans

A commission plan in Bitta Commission describes how a group of participants earns commission. Commission Plans lists your plans. Each plan has governed versions, and Commission Plan Version shows a version's lifecycle status, evidence and lineage, and holds the components, rates, assignments and calculation periods that apply for its dates. Commission Measures lists the measures a component can be paid on. This page shows you how to create a plan, build a Draft version, and take it through validation, submission, approval and publication.

Before you start

• Plan authors need the Bitta Commission Plan Designer permission set. A different user, normally with Bitta Commission Approver, approves the version. The requester can't approve their own request unless they are an administrator (see Approval policies).
• Exactly one effective plan approval policy with complete stages must exist. Commission Approval Policies has Create single-approver policy, and the setup wizard creates one with you as the approver when none is active. See Approval policies.
• Participants must be active before they can be assigned, and an open commission period should exist. See Participants and Commission periods.

The guided setup wizard creates one plan per run and takes it live itself: Finish validates, submits, approves and publishes the plan, using the administrator approval right that is recorded in the approval history. Plans from industry templates, and every plan you create on the plan pages, stay Draft until you take them through the steps below. A plan an earlier wizard run created before Release 1.2 is also managed from the plan pages.

The plan version lifecycle

Status	Meaning
Draft	The version can be edited. Submit moves it to In Review.
In Review	Submitted and waiting for approval. A rejection returns it to Draft.
Approved	An approver other than the requester, or an administrator, approved it. Publish moves it to Published. Returning it to Draft requires a change reason.
Published	Published and available for calculations within its effective dates.
Active, Suspended, Superseded, Expired, Archived	Reserved lifecycle states. No action moves a version into them, so Suspend, which applies only to Active versions, does not run.

The Next Action field on the plan card and the version card always explains the next governed step: Draft, Validate, Submit, independent Approve, then Publish.

Create a plan

1. In Tell Me, search for Commission Plans and open it.

2. Choose New Plan. On Edit Commission Plan, enter the Code, Description, Purpose, KPI Description, Review Date, Retirement Criteria, Calendar, Business Owner, Technical Owner, and the Effective From and Effective To dates of the first draft.

3. Choose OK. The plan and its first Draft version are created, and Commission Plan Version opens.

Later, choose Open Current Version on Commission Plans to continue the latest version.

Build the Draft version

1. Components. Choose Components, then New Component. A component is a Flat Rate, Progressive Tier, Tiered Rate, Retroactive Tier, Flat Amount or Per Unit model with a weight and its own Rates. See Flat-rate commission and Tiered commission. From Release 1.2 a Line Rate component pays every invoice line at its own rate; see Line rates and margin pools.

2. Assignments. Choose Assignments, then New Assignment. In Assign Participant or Position, choose the Assignment Basis (Participant or Position), the active participant or occupied active position, the Effective From and Effective To dates, the Allocation Percent, Priority and Conflict Policy.

3. Calculation Periods. Choose Calculation Periods and Add Calculation Period so every assigned participant and component is tracked over the assignment dates. See Commission periods.
4. Credit Splits (optional). Share a salesperson's sales with partner participants. See Crediting and splits.

Native posted sales need one effective 100 percent assignment for the credited participant in the plan version. Edit Draft changes the effective dates and change reason while the version is Draft.

Measures and formulas

Commission Measures lists the measures a supported component can be paid on. Choose an active measure when you configure the component; definition changes stay controlled by the plan workflow.

Column	What it shows
Value Type	Monetary, Quantity, Percent, Points, Count, Duration or Boolean.
Basis	The posted sales value that feeds the measure, such as Net Amount, Gross Margin, Quantity or Document Count.
Cost Basis	Release 1.2. The cost a gross margin measure uses: Actual Cost, Dated Commission Cost or Supplied Cost. See Commission costs.
Aggregation Method	How source values are aggregated, for example Sum, Average or Count.
Currency Behavior	Not Applicable, Source, Processing, Participant or Fixed.
Status	Draft, Active or Retired.

Commission Formulas reshapes the cumulative base a component is paid on, using BASE, TARGET, ATTAINMENT_PCT, measure codes, other active formulas, arithmetic and MIN, MAX and ROUND. Activate freezes the formula text for the plan versions that reference it.

Validate, submit, approve and publish

1. Choose Validate. Validation does not change the status. If there are findings, Plan Validation lists each one with a severity, code and description; Open Definition opens the component or rate schedule to fix.
2. Choose Submit. Submission validates again, creates the approval request and moves the version to In Review.
3. The approver chooses Approve: My Work Queue, which opens Commission Approval Work Queue, selects the request and chooses Approve or Reject with a reason. Approval moves the version to Approved; rejection returns it to Draft. From Release 1.2 an administrator (a user with Bitta Commission Setup Administrator or SUPER) can decide any plan request, including their own and requests not assigned to them, unless a participant linked to them is assigned in the plan version; SUPER can decide even those. Show all open requests on Commission Approval Work Queue lists every approver's open requests, and the decision is recorded in the Administrator Approval field.
4. Choose Publish. Publishing checks that the definition and validation evidence still match what was approved, validates again, and checks that every assigned participant whose country policy requires a signed agreement has one. The version becomes Published and its assignments become active.

The Evidence and Lifecycle Evidence groups record the hashes, the blocking finding count and when the version was submitted, approved and published.

Change a published plan

1. On the version card, choose Create Successor and enter the successor dates. Core plans copy independent components, policies, rates and draft assignments into a new Draft.
2. Add the new calculation periods, change what is needed, and take the successor through validation, approval and publication.

Compare Versions runs the read-only Compare Commission Plan Versions report against the predecessor. From Release 1.2 it also compares the crediting setup (credit rules, conditions, crediting settings, customer agreements, value lists, additive credits and caps), aging rules, payment discount treatment, No-Match Handling, the component options such as Band Basis and Pool Attribute Path, accelerators, the rate column Attribute Path and the measure Cost Basis.

Copy Plan to Next Year on the Bitta Commission Setup Checklist copies the latest published version to next year as a Draft successor. From Release 1.2 a successor, from this action or from Create Successor, also carries each component's crediting setup: credit rules and their conditions, customer agreements, additive credits and caps. When the successor starts exactly one year after its predecessor, the dates of those rules, agreements, additive credits and caps move forward by one year.

Effective assignments and conflicts

Assignments on different plans always stack. Within a plan, the Conflict Policy (Stack, Exclusive, Replace, First Match, Most Specific, Highest Result, Lowest Result, Best Of, Priority or Custom Resolver) decides which assignment wins. Effective Plan Assignments on the participant card shows the outcome for a date, including assignments inherited through a position.

Stewardship, documents and packages

• Stewardship on the plan card names the Plan Owner and Steward and the review cadence. Plans Due for Review lists plans whose review date has arrived.
• Preview Plan Document watermarks Draft, review and approved versions, which cannot be delivered. Distribute Plan Documents delivers a published version's document to its participants. See Plan acceptance.
• From Release 1.2 the plan document also prints the credit rule details (description, Stop Processing, credit type, rate or deduction attribute and dates), rule conditions, the value lists they use, customer agreements with their priority, additive credits, caps and the component band basis.
• Export Reference Package, Export Embedded Package, Import as New Plan and Import as New Version move a governed definition between companies; imports always arrive as Draft. From Release 1.2 a package also carries the crediting setup (credit rules, conditions, crediting settings, customer agreements, value lists, additive credits, caps and aging rules), payment discount treatment, the component options, accelerators, the rate column Attribute Path and the measure Cost Basis.

Message	What to do
BAA-PLAN-STATE	The status change is not allowed. Follow Validate, Submit, Approve, Publish.
BAA-WFL-POLICY	Exactly one effective approval policy with complete stages is needed. Review Commission Approval Policies.
BAA-WFL-SELFAPPROVAL	The requester can't approve their own request unless they are an administrator. Another approver must decide it, or change the stage on the Commission Approval Policy page if the requester is the stage approver.

What's next

Configure your first component: Flat-rate commission. For plan reports, see Commission reports.