🚀 Decoda raises $4.5M, led by Y Combinator. Read more

Decoda
Commissions

One sold it.
Another treated it. Who gets paid?

Every practice has this argument, and most settle it twice a month in a spreadsheet nobody trusts. The answer should be a rule you wrote once, not a negotiation at pay period close.

Payroll is Friday
Rebuilt by hand
commissions_final_v4.xlsx
Disputed
Filler package · 6 sessions
?Sold by Dana, treated by Dr. Chen
Botox 40u
?Discounted 20% — commission on which number?
Membership sign-up
?Front desk closed it, injector pitched it
Retail bundle
?Refunded in week three
Every answer is a negotiation, twice a month, forever

The actual question

Selling and treating are different jobs.

A six-session package gets sold once and delivered six times, often by different people. Most systems only know who rang it up, which is why the split-credit fight never ends. A rule here names the payee explicitly.

  • Pay the seller who closed the package
  • Or the provider who delivers each session as it's redeemed
  • Or the staff member whose outbound contact preceded the booking
  • Chosen per rule, so retail and injectables can differ
Commission payeePer rule
Seller
The provider who sold the package or banked item — even if someone else delivers the sessions later.
ProviderSelected
The provider who actually delivers the service, session by session as it's redeemed.
Attributed outbound staff
The staff member whose last outbound contact preceded the booking — the person who did the chasing.
Decided once when you write the rule, not argued after the fact

Tiers

The word “tiered” hides two plans.

Graduated pays each band its own rate. Stepwise pays every sale at the highest band reached. On the same three tiers those produce very different paychecks, and most practices have never made the choice deliberately — the spreadsheet just did whatever it did.

  • A base rate, plus as many threshold bands as you need
  • Graduated or stepwise, chosen per rule
  • Tiers reset weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, annually — or never
  • Percentage or flat amount per band
  • Tiers land on the recognition date, so a package pays into the period it was redeemed in
TiersReset monthly
$0 – $2,0008%
$2,000 – $5,00010%
$5,000+12%
Graduated
Only the sales inside each band earn that band's rate.
Stepwise
Every sale earns the highest band reached.
Same three tiers. Very different paycheck. Pick deliberately.

The number underneath

Commission on the discounted price.

A 20% promo shouldn't quietly cost the practice twice — once on the discount and again on a commission calculated as if it never happened. Rules pay on what was actually collected, unless you decide otherwise.

  • Net of discounts by default
  • Flip a rule to ignore discounts and it pays on list price
  • Prepayment discounts always excluded, so prepaid items pay in full
  • Refunds reverse the payout they created, automatically
Botox 40u · 20% promoNet of discounts
List price$840.00
Promo discount− $168.00
Commissionable$672.00
Per-rule override
Switch a rule to ignore discounts and it pays on the full pre-discount price instead.
Prepayment discounts are always excluded, so prepaid items pay on full price

When it's earned

Pay the seller now. Pay the injector later.

A package sold today is delivered over months, and the two people involved reasonably expect to be paid on different clocks. Each rule carries its own recognition basis, so both can run in the same pay period without a manual adjustment.

  • Recognise at sale, or at redemption, per rule
  • One pay run can contain both
  • Tiers land on the recognition date, not the original sale date
  • A refunded redemption cancels the payout it produced
One pay runTwo timelines
Front desk · at saleCash
Paid the day the six-session package is sold.
Injector · at redemptionAccrual
Paid a sixth at a time, as each session is actually delivered.
Session 4 refunded — that redemption reverses, and the payout it created comes back off.
Set per rule, so both can run in the same pay period.

Scope

Retail and injectables shouldn't pay the same.

A single blanket percentage is why comp plans stop reflecting the business. Rules target what they should — everything, a category, a type of item, or one specific service — and apply to the providers you assign them to.

  • All sales, a category, an item type, or a single item
  • Products, services, packages and medications each targetable
  • Assign a rule to the providers it covers
  • Run several rules at once for different parts of the menu
Applies to4 providers
All sales
One blanket rate across everything
By category
Retail one way, injectables another
By item type
Products, services, packages, medications
A single item
One service, its own rate
Then assign the rule to the providers it covers

Settle it once, not every payroll.

Commission plans go wrong in the edge cases — the package someone else delivers, the discounted sale, the tier nobody defined precisely. Write those answers into the rule and pay period close stops being a conversation.