How commissions and commission reporting work

Summary: Commissions can be attributed to up to three owner roles (client owner, assignment owner, and account manager), each carrying its own commission percentage — with assignment-level settings overriding client-level defaults — and, where you use commission tiers, your effective rate steps up as your year-to-date figure crosses tier thresholds; you can run the Commissions report at any time to see commission broken out by role, owner, assignment, and period.

Overview

Commissions on your account are attributed to the people who "own" a piece of business — the person who brought in the client, the person who owns the specific assignment, and the account manager who services it. Each of these roles can carry its own commission percentage, and each can be set as a default at the client level and then fine-tuned per assignment.

If you use commission tiers, your commission rate can step up automatically as your year-to-date volume grows.

Everything described here is scoped to your own agency's data. You can view and report on your own commissions and owners at any time.

1. The commission owner roles

There are three commission owner roles. Each role can be assigned to a user on your team, and each carries its own commission percentage, set independently of the others.

Because each role is a separate slot with its own percentage, a single assignment's commission can be split across more than one person — for example, one commission share to the client owner and another to the account manager.

Client-level defaults vs. assignment-level overrides

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On the client, you can set a default client owner (with a client-owner commission percentage) and a default account manager (with an account-manager commission percentage). These defaults apply to the client's assignments unless something more specific is set.

On the assignment, you can set:

an assignment owner and its commission percentage;

a client owner and its commission percentage that override the client's default client owner; and

an account manager and its commission percentage that override the client's default account manager.

In other words: if an assignment specifies its own client owner or account manager, those assignment-level values are used. If the assignment leaves those blank, the client-level defaults are used instead. The assignment owner is always set at the assignment level.

This lets you keep a sensible default for most of a client's work while still crediting a different owner or account manager on individual assignments where that's appropriate.

Your Ascen contact (CSM / account manager)

Separately from the owner roles above, your agency may have an Ascen-side customer success manager (CSM) assigned to your account. This is your point of contact on the Ascen team and is not one of the commission owner roles — it does not affect how commissions are attributed or paid. If you're unsure who your CSM is, contact Ascen support.

2. How commission tiers work

If tiers are enabled on your account, your commission rate is not a single flat number — it steps up as your business grows during the year.

Each commission tier is defined by two things:

a threshold — a year-to-date amount you need to reach, and

a rate — the commission rate that applies once you've reached that threshold.

Tiers work like a ladder. Your effective rate is the rate for the highest tier whose threshold your year-to-date figure has reached. As your year-to-date total grows and crosses the next threshold, your effective rate steps up to that tier's rate.

Date-effective rates. Tiers are date-effective. Each tier has an effective start (and, if it has been superseded, an end). This means a given period earns the rate that was in effect for that period — if your tier rates change partway through the year, earlier activity keeps the rate that applied when it happened, and later activity uses the newer rate.

Year-to-date resets each year. The year-to-date figure that determines your tier is measured per calendar year and resets at the start of each new year, so your tier progression starts fresh annually.

Note: If your account does not use tiers, commissions are simply attributed using the fixed percentages set on the owner roles (see section 1). Tiers only come into play when they've been configured for your account.

3. How the Commissions report works

You can run the Commissions report yourself, at any time, to see how commissions are attributed across your assignments. The report always covers your own agency's data only.

What the report shows

The Commissions report breaks commission down by assignment and by owner role for a period you choose. For each assignment (which identifies the contractor, job, and client) over the reporting period, it shows:

the period (start and end dates) covered;

totals for the assignment — hours, total pay, and total bill for the period;

for each of the three owner roles — the owner's name, that role's commission percentage, and the commission amount attributed to that role; and

where tiers apply, the effective tier rate used and the resulting commission amount, along with the year-to-date figure that determined your tier.

This lets you see, per assignment and per period, who is credited and how much commission each role earned — and roll that up across your whole book of business for the period.

How tiers are reflected in the report

When your account uses tiers, the report reflects your effective tier rate for the period being reported, based on your year-to-date figure as of the end of that reporting period. If a role has its own commission percentage set, that role's percentage is used for its share; where a role relies on the tier rate, the report shows the tier-resolved rate and amount. The report shows the resolved rate and amount so you can see the tier that was actually applied.

How to run and export it

1.

Go to the Reports section of your dashboard.
2.

Select the Commissions report.
3.

Choose the date range you want to cover.
4.

Run the report. Depending on size, results are shown on screen and/or emailed to you, and can be exported (for example, to CSV) for your own records and reconciliation.

You can also schedule the Commissions report to run on a recurring basis so it's delivered automatically.

Frequently asked questions

Can I change who's credited on an assignment?
Yes. You can set the assignment owner, and you can set a client owner and account manager at the assignment level that override the client's defaults. See section 1.

Why does one assignment credit a different account manager than the client's default?
Because that assignment has its own account manager set, which overrides the client-level default. The same applies to the client owner.

Will my commission rate change during the year?
If you use tiers, yes — your effective rate steps up as your year-to-date figure crosses the next tier threshold, and it resets at the start of each new year. If you don't use tiers, your commission is based on the fixed percentages set on the owner roles.

Can I see other agencies' commissions?
No. Reporting is scoped to your own agency's data only.

If anything in your Commissions report looks off — a missing owner, an unexpected rate, or a role credited to the wrong person — contact Ascen support or your CSM and we'll help you sort it out.