Settle commission

A settlement selects the eligible commission of a period up to a cutoff date, gets it approved and freezes it as the record of what is paid. In Bitta Commission the frozen settlement then feeds the payment outputs and the accounting proposal. Pay groups let you settle groups of participants on their own frequency, with a minimum and maximum payment.

Before you start

• Earnings must be eligible. See Eligibility rules. With payment-based eligibility, credit memos applied to an invoice can reduce its commission before it is selected. See Credit memo netting.
• Each participant version needs a Payment Method: Accounts Payable, Payroll Export, Generic Export or Manual. Payroll lines need a Payment Export Code or an Employee No., Accounts Payable lines a Vendor No. or an effective vendor link. See Participants.
• Settlements need the finance-all security scope. Without it, the pages are refused with BAA-FINANCE-SCOPE.
• If you use settlement approval policies, set them up first. The guided setup creates a settlement approval policy with you as the approver when no active policy exists. See Approval policies.
• If you paid commission on open invoices outside Business Central before go-live, record it first so that it is never released or paid again. See Commission paid outside Business Central.

Set up a pay group

Pay groups are optional. Without one, a settlement selects the participant you choose, or every eligible participant.

1. Search for Commission Pay Groups and create a group.
2. On Commission Pay Group, fill in the fields, then add participants in Members with Effective From and an optional Effective To.

Field	What it does
Status	Only Active groups can be chosen for new settlements.
Company Name	The company that pays the group, when it is not the current company.
Payment Frequency	Weekly, Biweekly, Semimonthly, Monthly, Quarterly, Annual or On Demand. New settlements default their cutoff to the end of the current cycle. On Demand uses the work date.
Cycle Anchor Date	A date that ends one biweekly cycle. Required for Biweekly.
Minimum Payment Amount	Smaller payables are deferred and stay eligible. Zero means no minimum.
Maximum Payment Amount	Only the maximum is paid and the remainder stays eligible. Zero means no maximum.
Component Offset	Offset Across Components nets negative components against positive ones. Positive Components Only pays the positive components and carries the negative ones forward.
Payment Method	Payroll Export or Accounts Payable.
Output Format Code	A free code recorded on exports for the group.
Consolidated Payee	Payee mappings redirect member payments to a payee.
Default Currency Code	Leave blank. Pay groups settle in local currency.

A participant belongs to one pay group at a time. Retire a group instead of deleting it once a settlement references it.

Payee mappings opens Commission Payee Mappings. A mapping pays one participant's commission to another participant, for example an agency paid for several agents. The settlement still keeps one line per participant. Mappings cannot be chained and cannot overlap.

Create and freeze a settlement

1. Search for Commission Settlements and choose New settlement.
2. On New Commission Settlement, choose the Period, optionally a Pay group, and one Participant or All participants. Set the Cutoff date: eligible balances through this date are included. Leave No. blank to use the Commission Nos. series.

3. Choose OK. The settlement opens on Commission Settlement in Draft with its lines.

4. Review the lines. Choose Refresh selection if new eligible amounts arrived.
5. Choose Submit for approval. With an active settlement approval policy, the request goes to the approvers. Without one, the settlement is approved at once.
6. The approver opens the settlement and chooses Approve batch or Reject batch with a reason. The requester cannot approve the request, unless they are an administrator: an administrator may approve their own request when the settlement does not include their own commission, and a SUPER user may approve it even then. See Approval policies.

7. Choose Freeze settlement and confirm. The app rechecks the balances and the license, reserves the approved selection and moves the payable amounts to Payable. From then on the settlement cannot change.

Freezing a regular settlement also freezes its period. See Close a period.

The Attachments FactBox on the settlement card keeps supporting documents with the settlement, for example approval e-mails or bank confirmations.

Read the settlement lines

Field	What it shows
Selected Amount	The eligible amount selected through the cutoff.
Recovery Amount	The amount withheld to recover an earlier overpayment. See Commission clawbacks.
Net Amount	What the line pays.
Line Status	Payable, Deferred (below the minimum), Capped (above the maximum) or Carried Forward (the net is negative and offsets later earnings).
Decision Explanation	Why the payable differs from the selected amount.
Payment Method / Output Destination Code	How the line is paid, for example EMPLOYEE-PAYROLL or VENDOR-AP.
Payee Participant ID	The consolidated payee, if any.
Hold Reason Code	Why part of the balance is held.

Choose Balance evidence on a line to see the balance movements it selected.

Pay a frozen settlement

Payment method	Next step
Payroll Export	Create payroll-ready export. See Payroll-ready export.
Accounts Payable	Create AP export and purchase invoices, or purchase credit memos for lines whose liability nets negative. See Pay through Payables.
Generic Export	Create generic export file downloads a CSV of the generic export lines. Then record each payment.
Manual	Pay outside Business Central, then record the payment.

In every case, choose Create accounting proposal to post the accrual. See Commission accruals.

To record a payment on a manual, generic export or uninvoiced accounts payable line, select the line and choose Record payment. Enter the Paid amount (no more than the unpaid amount), the Pay date and a Payment reference.

A settlement becomes Paid once its payable amount is covered by posted AP invoices, accepted payroll payments or recorded payments.

Choose Remittance advice to print Commission Remittance Advice: the lines, holds, payments and running balance per participant. Beside the default layout, the report has Word layouts in Letter and A4 that you can select in Report Layouts. For the other reports, see Commission reports.

Choose Send Statements by E-Mail to e-mail every participant of the settlement their current statement as a PDF, with their own remittance advice attached when the statement e-mail setup asks for it. Only approved statements and current delivered statements are sent. The others are skipped, and the reason is logged. Generate the statements first. See Email statements.

Settlement statuses

A settlement moves through Draft, Review, Submitted, Approved, Frozen, Exported, Posted, Paid, Reconciled and Closed. It can also be Cancelled or Reversed.

Off-cycle and final pay

• Off-cycle creates an emergency, correction, contest or manual settlement outside the pay group calendar. The cutoff is not defaulted and an Off-cycle reason code is required.
• Final pay settles every eligible amount of one terminated participant regardless of the cutoff date. The participant version needs a termination date. Pay group minimum and maximum do not apply.

Off-cycle and final pay settlements leave the period status as it is.

Troubleshooting

• BAA-SETTLE-VENDOR. A participant in an Accounts Payable pay group has no effective vendor link or vendor number with a matching currency.
• BAA-PAYGROUP-EMPTY. The pay group has no members effective on the as-of date.
• BAA-HOLD-PAYSHEET. The settlement is on hold. Release its hold on the Eligibility Holds page before submitting or freezing.
• A later reservation exists. A participant already has a frozen settlement with a later cutoff. Use a cutoff that includes it.
• BAA-WFL-SELFAPPROVAL. The person who requested the approval tried to decide it. Another approver must decide it, unless the requester is an administrator whose own commission is not in the settlement.

What's next

Send payroll its file: Payroll-ready export.