Agent Commissions Overview

VETtrak can be configured to track Agent Commission information for the purpose of recognising, calculating and tracking payable commissions to student referral Agents.

Using this functionality you can create and track Agencies and their Agents, while also adding information to calculate payable Commissions for Student Enrolments, that can then be tracked as Accounts Payable Invoices.   

There are some unique flags within your VETtrak data that have to be accessed and turned on for the Agent Commissions functionality to start working - this article serves as a starting point for where to find these flags to get started.

• Flagging an Employer as an Agency
• Flagging an Employer Contact as an Agent
• Attaching Agency/Agent Details to a Student Enrolment
• Setting Agent Commissions via Commission Rules
• Agent Commission Amount and Accounts Payable Invoices

Flagging an Employer as an Agency

Within VETtrak, you can set up an Agency for your Agents as an Employer within the Employer Manager.

When you are editing or adding a new Employer into VETtrak, the very first page of the wizard has the following checkbox to flag the employer is an Agency:

Selecting this item sets VETtrak to recognise the Employer as an Agency, as well as providing access to the following unique Agency Details page:

This area is dedicated to entering information specific to this Agency,

1. First, select the Agency Type, whether it is On-shore (Australia) or Off-shore (International).
2. Enter the MARA/Overseas education agency ID (MARA is an acronym for Migration Agents Registration Authority).
3. If an agency agreement has been processed, tick the Has the Agency been appointed/agency agreement signed box. Optionally, enter the relevant Signing/Date details that correspond to the agreement.
4. If you have any created Commission Rules within your VETtrak system, you can select a Default one for this agency here. Otherwise press the handy button to the left-hand side to create a new one immediately.
5. If this agency has been referenced online, tick the Is the agency listed on RTO's website box.
6. In the Target Countries area, start typing any relevant country and select it within the pop up area to add it in this section.

With these details entered, continue progressing the wizard until you Finish screen, which will then save these details.

Once an Employer has been flagged as an Agency, unique details will display once selected within the Employer Manager including the Agency ID and the Agency enrolments heading:

Flagging an Employer Contact as an Agent

Agents are recognised clients within your VETtrak system that are listed as contacts under an Agency. 

The simplest way to establish an Agent is within the Employer Manager, under the Contacts heading.

Right-clicking on this item allows the following methods to attach Contacts to this Agency:

1. Add contact allows you to create a new VETtrak Client record and instantly list it against this employer.
2. Attach client to employer will allow you to look up an existing VETtrak Client and associate them with with employer.

Whether you are creating a new employer contact, or adding an existing one - The following box will need to be ticked to flag the client as an Agent:

Once this has been done, the Client will display under the Contacts heading of the Employer Manager, with the Agent label.

Attaching Agency/Agent Details to a Student Enrolment

With your Agency and Agent details entered into VETtrak, you can now add this information to a referred students Enrolment.

Within the Enrolment Wizard for this student, locate the Optional Information page. On the Optional Information page, there is a section for Agent Commission details:

Within this area, select:

• The Agency that is responsible for the Agent.
• The Agent who processed the referral.

This enrolment will then be displayed under a unique Agent/Agency Enrolments heading, both within the Client Manager for this agent:

As well as within the Employer Manager for the agency:

With this done, the next step is to set up some data to assist with calculating the Agent Commission, via setting up Commission Rules.

Setting Agent Commissions via Commission Rules

Recognising Agent Commissions within VETtrak requires additional information to be entered when enrolling the referred students. This is done via Commission Rules.

Commission Rules are used to calculate the payable amounts for agent-based enrolment commissions. Commission can be calculated on a flat rate per enrolment or based on a percentage of the Pricing Items being used within the Enrolment Wizard:

Commission rules can be created within the Configuration Manager of VETtrak, or by pushing the handy button next to the field in the Enrolment Wizard. For more details, see our Creating Commission Rules article. 

Once a Commission Rule has been created

Within the Enrolment Wizard, you then need to make sure the Pricing Information area is set up correctly to accommodate the created Commission Rule's requirements:

You can then select your Commission Rule within the Enrolment wizard via a drop down selection in the Optional Information area:

Agent Commission Amount and Accounts Payable Invoices

Commission amounts payable are represented as a unique type of Accounts Payable Invoice within VETtrak, known as an Agent Commissions Invoices.

These appear in the Employer Manager for the agency, under the Accounts Payable Invoices heading:

An Agent Commissions Invoice is generated based on the Commission Rule present in the referred-students enrolment, and represents the amount to be paid to the referring body.

Please note: Agent Commissions cannot occur until the original invoice for the enrolment is fully paid. This means generation utilities to create these unique Agent Commissions Invoices will only be able to preview prospective commission amounts until the status of that invoice reflect a fully paid status, like so:

Generating Agent Commissions Invoices

In the Employer Manager for this Agency, you can generate Agent Commissions Invoices by right-clicking the Accounts Payable Invoices heading and selecting Generate agent commission invoices:

You can also access the generation utility under the Utility -> Finance utilities menu heading:

This will display the Generate Agent Commissions Wizard:

This wizard is designed to easily display outstanding agent commission amounts that have not yet had an invoiced generated for them. Pressing the Search button will populate the grid based off the date entered in the Date for new invoices field.

Client and Enrolment details will display in the main body of the wizard, as well as information related to their existing enrolment invoice. This includes the amount due to be paid as part of Agent Commission invoice.

If you instead wish to see any commissions amounts that are entered by are not yet ready to be generated, tick the the Preview commissions not yet due for enrolment invoices box and perform a search. A message will display to indicate that this is a preview only, and invoices are not yet ready to be generated:

When viewing commission amounts that are ready to generate, you can tick the Use box against any item in this area to select it for an Accounts Payable Invoice to be generated for the agent/agency:

You can then press Next and Finish to generate the items as invoices.

The finish page also includes some options to view the invoices immediately, or instead to view a summary report of the items being generated.

Generated Agent Commission invoices will display within the Employer Manager for the Agency under the Accounts Payable Invoices heading:
 

Note: Running this wizard from the Employer Manager will show only amounts for this particular employer. Using the option from the Utility menu shown above will display all Agencies with pending amounts:

Managing Agent Commissions Invoices

Once created, you can manage these Agent Commission Invoices in much the same way you manage any other invoice within VETtrak - keeping in mind that Account Payable invoices represent money owed to an external party, rather than your RTO.

Right-click on an existing Agent Commission Invoice to see what options are immediately available:

For more information on Recording Payments and Refunds, see our Payments, Adjustments and Refunds article.