Overview
Tern supports Agent Commission Tracking - which allows you to view the status of your bookings (set by your agency admin) across all trips in Tern.
IMPORTANT NOTE: this article focuses on commission tracking for Agents within an agency on Tern.
If you're an advisor looking to track commission outside of an agency, start here: Advisor Commission Tracking
If you're an agency admin looking to reconcile commission across your agency and get them ready for agent payouts, start here: Tern Agency: Commission Reconciliation
Marking activities as 'Booked'
You'll notice a 'Commission' tab on your top nav
If you haven't marked any of your activities before as 'booked', you may see a blank table at first. Tern only surfaces activities to your agency admin after you mark them as 'booked'. That way you can still add expected commission to activities as you propose them to your clients, but it won't create noise by tracking things that you never end up booking.
Marking activities as 'Booked'
To mark an activity as Booked, go to the booking & pricing tab, and click on "mark as booked" under booking details. You can do this for trip activities, trip packages, and insurance.
You can adjust the booking date if needed, review the booking details (all pulled from the activity), and then confirm your booking. You'll see your 'default agency' selected under accreditation. Learn more about managing your default agency.
Once you mark an activity as 'booked' you'll see a 'Received Commission' section under expected commission. As your agency administrator logs payments as received, or marks your payouts as 'paid', you'll see those statuses change here. You can also see statuses across all of your bookings on your commission tracking dashboard (more on that below!).
Commission Dashboard: Bookings Tab
Now that we've marked a few activities as booked, you'll start to see them appear in your Commission Tracking Dashboard. This includes bookings across every trip you are planning in Tern.
Commission Statuses
Commission statuses help you understand whether or not a supplier has paid your agency for a booking yet. The agency payouts tab will help track your agency's payouts to you.
Upcoming: expected commission date is in the future
Overdue: expected commission date is in the past
Partial: at least one commission payment (from the supplier) has been logged against the activity by your agency admin, to account for activities you are expecting more commission payments for.
Received: all expected commission payments (from the supplier) have been logged against the activity by your agency admin.
Cancelled: you have marked the activity as cancelled after booking
Commission Dashboard: Agency Payouts Tab
If your agency admin hasn't started logging your payments in Tern yet, you may notice this table is empty at first.
As they start to log payments, you'll see them populate here.
Payment Statuses
Payment statuses help you track payments expected from your agency for specific bookings.
Ready: your agency admin has logged a commission payment from a supplier, and your percentage is eligible to be paid out to you, but has not been marked as 'paid' yet.
On Hold: your agency admin has logged a commission payment from a supplier, but it is not eligible for payout to you yet. For example: many agencies hold on paying out commission until a specific date before or after travel, to avoid having to take the money back in cases of cancellations / refunds.
Paid: your agency admin has marked your commission for this booking as 'paid'. This typically means it can be expected in your next agency payment.
Exporting data
In addition to using Tern to track commission status and agency payouts, you can export this data at any time.
FAQ
I'm seeing a drop-down with multiple options to choose from on my Commission Dashboard - what does that mean?
You'll see this toggle if you've marked activities as 'booked' through multiple agencies in Tern, or if you've marked activities as 'booked' through at least one agency, AND marked other activities as 'booked' not through your agency. If that's the case you can toggle between agency bookings / bookings not made through your agency. Depending on which option you select, you may notice different functionality.
This article focuses on commission tracking for Agents (so it would match what you see when you are toggled to your agency)
If you are looking for more information about tracking payments for bookings NOT through your agency, start here: Advisor Commission Tracking
