Tiered commission

Tiered plans pay a higher rate as a participant sells more in a calculation period. Bitta Commission has three tiered models that share one tier table but differ in how a higher band applies. This page shows you how to enter tier bands, how each model prices a sale, how returns move back through the tiers, and where to see the tier evidence of every earning.

Before you start

• You need the Bitta Commission Plan Designer permission set and a plan with a Draft version.
• Progressive Tier, Tiered Rate and Retroactive Tier are core models. No module is needed, except for percent-of-quota bands and accelerators, which read period targets from the Quotas and targets module.
• Tiers accumulate within a calculation period, so the plan version needs calculation periods for its participants. See Commission periods.

The setup wizard can create a two-band tiered plan with the plan style Tiered rates: How tiers pay chooses progressive or retroactive tiers, and Finish takes the plan live. See Run the guided setup.

The three tiered models

Model	How it prices the cumulative base	Reprices earlier sales?
Progressive Tier	Each band rate applies only to the part of the cumulative base inside that band (marginal tiers).	No
Tiered Rate	Each sale is paid at the rate of the band the cumulative base reaches after that sale.	No
Retroactive Tier	The whole cumulative base is paid at the rate of the band it has reached.	Yes

Progressive Tier and Retroactive Tier are pure functions of the cumulative base: the period total is the same in any order of sales. Tiered Rate depends on the order of sales, because each sale is priced when it happens.

Enter the tier bands

1. On Commission Components of the Draft version, add or edit a component with the model Progressive Tier, Tiered Rate or Retroactive Tier and a monetary measure basis such as Net Amount or Gross Margin. See Flat-rate commission for the component fields.
2. Select the component and choose Rates. On Commission Rates, enter one row per band:

Field	What it does
Sequence	The order of the bands.
From (Cumulative Base)	The included lower bound. The first row starts at zero; each next row starts at the previous upper bound.
To (Cumulative Base)	The excluded upper bound of the band.
Open Upper Bound	Select on the final row, which covers everything above its lower bound.
Rate %	The band rate, for example 5 for five percent, between 0 and 100.

3. Choose Save Rates. The schedule is refused when it has gaps, overlaps or no open final row.

Optional settings:

• Interpolation on Commission Rates: None applies each band rate as a step. Linear slides the rate from the band rate at its lower bound to the next band rate at its upper bound. It is available for Retroactive Tier and Tiered Rate only; the open final band keeps its own rate.
• Band Basis in the Modifiers group of the component: Amount (default) bounds the bands by the cumulative base; Percent of Quota reads the bounds as attainment percents of the period target, for example 0, 100 and 150, while the rate still applies to the amount. It needs a positive target on the calculation period. A third basis, Document Margin % (Release 1.2), is for the Line Rate model only. See Line rates and margin pools.
• Attainment Multipliers on Commission Rates: accelerators and decelerators by attainment percent. See Quotas and targets.

Worked examples

All three examples use the bands 0 to 1,000 at 5% and 1,000 and above at 10%, and three invoices of 600, 600 and 300 in one period. The cumulative base after each invoice is 600, 1,200 and 1,500.

Invoice	Progressive Tier	Tiered Rate	Retroactive Tier
600 (base 600)	600 at 5% = 30.00	600 at 5% = 30.00	Entitlement 30.00, earning 30.00
600 (base 1,200)	400 at 5% + 200 at 10% = 40.00	600 at 10% = 60.00	Entitlement 1,200 at 10% = 120.00, earning 90.00
300 (base 1,500)	300 at 10% = 30.00	300 at 10% = 30.00	Entitlement 150.00, earning 30.00
Period total	100.00	120.00	150.00

With Retroactive Tier the second earning includes the uplift of the first invoice from 5% to 10%. With Tiered Rate the whole second invoice is paid at 10% because the base reached band 2 with it, but the first invoice is not repriced.

Returns across tiers

A linked return lowers the cumulative base and records a negative earning; the original earnings stay unchanged.

• Progressive Tier and Retroactive Tier recalculate the entitlement for the new base and record the difference. A return of 600 in the Retroactive example brings the base from 1,500 to 900, back into band 1: the entitlement drops from 150.00 to 45.00 and an earning of -105.00 is recorded.
• Tiered Rate prices the returned amount at the rate of the band the base falls back to. The same return of 600 brings the base to 900, so it is reversed at 5% and records -30.00.

Tier Calculation Details

Every tiered earning keeps its tier evidence. Search for Commission Earnings, open an earning, and review the Tier Calculation Details part of the Commission Earning card.

Evidence Kind Code	Written for
REVERSAL and REPLACEMENT	Progressive Tier: one row per band for the prior base (reversed) and for the new base. Retroactive Tier: the prior base reversed at its old rate and the new base priced at its new rate.
STEP	Tiered Rate: the contribution of the sale at the rate of the band reached.
MODIFIER and BASIS	A modifier or basis that applied, named in Unit / Modifier: for example PCT-OF-QUOTA, HURDLE, ACCELERATOR, CAP or FLOOR. For modifier rows the lower and upper bounds hold the entitlement before and after the step.

Each row also shows the tier sequence, the bounds and whether the upper bound is open, the value in band, the resolved rate, the calculated and pre-round amounts and the rounding adjustment. See Explain any earning for the full trace.

What to check if it goes wrong

Symptom	What to do
Save Rates refuses the schedule	Start at zero, use the previous upper bound as the next lower bound, and select Open Upper Bound on the final row.
An early sale seems paid at a higher rate	Check whether the component is Retroactive Tier rather than Progressive Tier.
BAACOMM-PUB-CALC-TARGET-001	Percent-of-quota bands and accelerators need a positive target on the calculation period row that covers the sale date.

For the earning pages on the Role Center, see Commission reports.

What's next

Pay on attainment of a target: Quotas and targets.