Commission Agreements
As most of you know, Livery Coach has a feature that allows the system to calculate and pay commissions, typically to sales people or travel agents. In order to pay a commission on a trip, the commission agreement must be set up.
(If your chauffeurs are independent operators and make commissions on the trips they drive, then that is handled with a driver pay agreement rather than a commission agreement).
Setting up a commission agreement is fairly straight forward—a commission agreement can be created for any chauffeur, vendor, or office personnel. (If you have an office employee who does not drive but needs to get paid commissions, then set them up in QuickBooks exactly like a chauffeur, except use :Office rather than :Chauff)
Once they’re set up in QuickBooks, simply navigate in Maintenance to Maintain… Agreements.
(If your chauffeurs are independent operators and make commissions on the trips they drive, then that is handled with a driver pay agreement rather than a commission agreement).
Setting up a commission agreement is fairly straight forward—a commission agreement can be created for any chauffeur, vendor, or office personnel. (If you have an office employee who does not drive but needs to get paid commissions, then set them up in QuickBooks exactly like a chauffeur, except use :Office rather than :Chauff)
Once they’re set up in QuickBooks, simply navigate in Maintenance to Maintain… Agreements.
Click “Add” at the top and then fill in the Name, ID, and select “Commission” for the Type. The other fields are optional. (The Name should be something you recognize, and the ID should be some unique value to help the system keep them all straight—and this field is limited to 10 characters max.)
If you think of a filing cabinet, this first step essentially creates the file folder in which you can store the actual agreement.
Once the “file folder” (or “Agreement”) has been added, you now need to create the commission agreement itself (called the “Agreement Entity”). Select the Agreement you just created in the top box, and then click on the lower “Add” button.
If you think of a filing cabinet, this first step essentially creates the file folder in which you can store the actual agreement.
Once the “file folder” (or “Agreement”) has been added, you now need to create the commission agreement itself (called the “Agreement Entity”). Select the Agreement you just created in the top box, and then click on the lower “Add” button.
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Once you click Add, then you need to perform the following steps:
- Select Employee, Vendor, or Office (as appropriate)—in our example it is a Vendor
- Select the Entity Name at the bottom (in our example, TravelAgent)
- Enter the Commission you want to pay, and select if it is Percent (most common), a fixed rate, or an hourly rate. (As an example, you could set up an agreement to pay $5 per trip regardless of the price of the trip…or $1/hr so the longer the trip the more the commission, regardless of the hourly price of the vehicle
- Click “OK” to save the commission.
The essential idea is that you need to attach the commission agreement to the trip. Then, in TripBook, the Commission tab will light up (and the commission will automatically be calculated). After that, commissions are processed in a manner similar to driver pay.
The simplest method is to just manually add the commission. When a trip is open, click on the Commission button (which is supposed to look like a hand holding a wad of cash).
The simplest method is to just manually add the commission. When a trip is open, click on the Commission button (which is supposed to look like a hand holding a wad of cash).
Select the type of commission it is (Vendor in our example), then find the actual commission agreement, and click Add.
The selected commission agreement will then appear in the lower box.
When a trip has a commission attached, the box next to the commission button will have a check-mark.
Now that we know the slow, tedious, manual way to add a commission agreement to a trip, how can we automate this?
If you have a particular contact that, whenever he or she books a trip, should automatically have a commission agreement attached to that trip, then all you need to do is add the agreement to the contact.
Open the contact record and select the Commission tab in the lower left. Find the commission agreement in the bottom box, and double-click it. It will add itself to the middle box.
If you have a particular contact that, whenever he or she books a trip, should automatically have a commission agreement attached to that trip, then all you need to do is add the agreement to the contact.
Open the contact record and select the Commission tab in the lower left. Find the commission agreement in the bottom box, and double-click it. It will add itself to the middle box.
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Now, every time that contact books a trip, the commission agreement will automatically attach itself.
But what if you have a lot of contacts that all work for the same company, and you need to pay a commission no matter what contact books? And you want it automatically added even for new contacts for that company?
In that case, you need to go up a level—rather than attaching the auto-commission to each contact, you want to attach it to the company.
To do that, simply open Maintenance, and navigate to Maintain…Agreements…Company…Commission.
But what if you have a lot of contacts that all work for the same company, and you need to pay a commission no matter what contact books? And you want it automatically added even for new contacts for that company?
In that case, you need to go up a level—rather than attaching the auto-commission to each contact, you want to attach it to the company.
To do that, simply open Maintenance, and navigate to Maintain…Agreements…Company…Commission.
Select the company you want to automatically add the commission to on the left, and select the commission agreement on the right. Then click Add.
Once it is added, you will see it in the lower box.
Now, every time a reservation is made with that Company name (LC Solutions, in our example) the commission for TravelAgent will automatically be applied.
As you have seen, it takes a little time to properly set up a Commission Agreement and attach it to a trip. What happens if you have a brand new customer—a travel agent, say—who calls up and wants to book right then, but wants to make sure he/she will be paid a commission.
You may not want to take the time to set up the whole commission agreement right then—indeed, the reservation agent on the phone may not even have the ability or permission to do so. But, you want to get the trip booked, and you don’t want to forget about the commission. In that case, the reservationist, after creating the contact, simply needs to click on the “Commission Required” box at the top of the contact screen.
As you have seen, it takes a little time to properly set up a Commission Agreement and attach it to a trip. What happens if you have a brand new customer—a travel agent, say—who calls up and wants to book right then, but wants to make sure he/she will be paid a commission.
You may not want to take the time to set up the whole commission agreement right then—indeed, the reservation agent on the phone may not even have the ability or permission to do so. But, you want to get the trip booked, and you don’t want to forget about the commission. In that case, the reservationist, after creating the contact, simply needs to click on the “Commission Required” box at the top of the contact screen.
This will tell TripBook that there needs to be a commission on the trip. When the trip is ready to be closed, if there is no commission agreement attached, TripBook will give a warning and not allow the trip to be closed.