Set up commission

This page takes a Business Central company from installing Bitta Commission to its first calculated sales commission, in eight steps. Each step is short and links to the guide page with the detail.

Before you start

• Business Central online 28.0 or later.
• An administrator who can install extensions.
• Your salespeople set up on Salespeople/Purchasers, and posted sales invoices that carry their Salesperson Code.
• Two users: one who sets up the plan and one who approves it. Business Central refuses a self-approval.
• A 30-day trial code from Bitta Apps. Request a 30-day trial code.

Step 1: Install the extension

Bitta Apps supplies the extension package. In Extension Management, choose Manage, then Upload Extension, select the package and choose Deploy. Then assign the Bitta Commission Setup Administrator permission set to the person who configures the app. See Install and upgrade.

Step 2: Activate your trial

Installing the extension does not start a trial. Open Bitta Commission Setup, paste the code into Activation Code and choose Activate License. In a sandbox, first turn on Allow HttpClient Requests in the extension settings of Bitta Commission. See Activate a license.

Step 3: Run the setup wizard

Search for Set Up Bitta Commission and choose Set Up My Company. The seven steps pick the salespeople who earn, the earning dates and a plan style, then show what each salesperson would have earned on last month's posted invoices. Nothing is saved until you choose Create Setup.

For a first plan, choose Percent of sales in How do you pay?. It can reuse the Commission % already stored on each salesperson: select Use each salesperson commission percentage. Percent of margin, Amount per unit sold and Tiered rates are also priced sale by sale. Bonus, SPIFF, manager override and draw styles pay at period close, so add them once your first plan runs.

Create Setup creates the participants and their salesperson mappings, the calendar and period, a Draft plan and a 100 percent assignment for each salesperson. The plan stays Draft until steps 4 and 5. See Run the guided setup.

Step 4: Add a plan approval policy

Submitting a plan needs exactly one effective approval policy for the document type Plan. Without it, submission stops with BAA-WFL-POLICY.

1. Open Commission Approval Policies, choose Actions, then Create single-approver policy.
2. Enter a Policy code and Description, choose the Document type Plan, set Effective from and choose the second user as Approver user.
3. Choose OK. The policy is created and activated.

Assign the Bitta Commission Approver permission set to the approver. See Approval policies.

Step 5: Approve and publish the plan

1. On the last step of the wizard, choose Open Plan, or open Commission Plans and choose Open Current Version.
2. Choose Validate, then Submit. The version moves to In Review.
3. The approver chooses Approve: My Work Queue, selects the request and chooses Approve.
4. Choose Publish. The version becomes Published and its assignments become active.

See Commission plans.

Step 6: Turn on sales capture

Open Bitta Commission Setup and go to the Native Capture group.

1. Set Native History Start Date, the earliest posting date to capture.
2. Choose Prepare Native Scanner Jobs. The scanner jobs are created in On Hold status.
3. In Job Queue Entries, set the native sales, cash and cost scanner jobs to Ready.
4. Choose Validate Native Scanner Readiness while the jobs are On Hold or idle. A job that is waiting or running at that moment fails the check.
5. Turn on Native Capture Enabled.
6. To capture right away, open Commission Source Facts and choose Capture Posted Sales.

See Capture posted sales.

Step 7: Calculate

1. Open Commission Trial Runs, create a trial with the Period Code and Plan Code, and choose Calculate Trial. Each result line shows its explanation, and no ledger is written.
2. When the numbers look right, choose Promote to Posted Run. A full batch run over the same scope writes the earnings.

See Calculate commission.

Step 8: Check and approve the result

• Open Commission Earnings, open an earning and choose Trace Nodes. Commission Calculation Trace shows the source line, credit, rate and rounding behind the amount. See Explain any earning.
• Assign each sales rep the Bitta Commission Participant permission set so they can follow their own earnings in My Commission. See Sales rep view.
• When the results of the period are right, a finance user selects the period on Commission Periods and chooses Approve Results. See Commission periods.

When you are ready to pay

Pay from the calculated earnings in this order:

1. Settle commission: create a settlement for the period, submit it and freeze it. Without a settlement approval policy, it is approved at once.
2. Pay the frozen settlement: Pay through Payables for vendors, or a Payroll-ready export for payroll.
3. Commission accruals: create the accounting proposal, then approve and post it. This needs an approval policy for the document type Accounting posting.
4. G/L reconciliation: reconcile the commission subledger to the general ledger and sign off.
5. Earnings statements: generate the statements and make them available in Business Central. This needs an approval policy for the document type Statement.

Add more later

• Switch on quotas, advanced models, disputes and the other modules per company when a plan needs them: Optional modules.
• Bring participants, plans, rates and quotas in from spreadsheets: Import from Excel.
• Check what is still missing with the Setup checklist.

What's next

Decide who needs which permission set: Permission sets.