If you intend to offer your staff commission to incentivise and reward their ability to make sales, Cloud POS offers the functionality to configure the system and make calculating earned commission a more straightforward process.

You can specify commission rates at item or category level, and apply either a fixed value or percentage rate.  The Sales Rep assigned to the transaction will earn commission based on the items sold and the commission rate assigned to the items. Commission earned by each Sales Rep will then be available to view in Cloud Reports, within the Sales by Rep Report and the Transaction Commission Report.

This article describes how to set up Cloud POS to make use of the commission functionality.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  Only Cloud POS users with Administrator-level privileges can create and amend commission rates.

Getting Started - Things to know

To be able to use the commission functionality, you'll need to set up your cashiers as Sales Reps.  Commission is assigned to the Sales Rep set on the transaction, so if you are not already using Sales Reps in Cloud POS, please see the Related Articles for guidance on how to do this.

Commission can be applied at either Category level, or on a per-Item basis.  When it is set at Item level, this setting will always take precedence over the Category-level setting.  So, for example, if you have an item with a commission rate applied, and the item belongs to a category where commission is blocked, that specific item will still qualify for commission.

You can specify the amount of commission earned either by applying a fixed value, using Commission Value Price Bands, or as a Percentage value.  When a percentage is applied, this will calculate the commission value from the price of the item minus the VAT.  You can use both methods within your Cloud POS group as required, but only one method can be applied to an item at any one time.

Commission Value Price Bands

Using Commission Value Price Bands allows you to dictate a fixed price amount of commission for sales of items within a price range you specify.  You can create multiple price bands to apply different commission values, depending on the price of the item being sold.

You'll need to set up Commission Value Price Bands before you can apply these to categories or items.  They can be set up from the main menu in Cloud POS backoffice.  Go to Setup and then Commission Value Price Band Setup;

To create a new Price Band, click New and complete the following fields:

Minimum Price: Any item with a price lower than this will not have this commission rate applied;
Maximum Price:  Any Item with a price greater than this will not have this commission rate applied;
Commission Value:  The amount (in currency) that the Sales Rep will earn when selling an item within this price band.

Below gives an example of how you might use multiple price bands to structure the commission rates.  Note that the price values cannot overlap, so we've set the minimum price of the bottom three bands to start at £0.01 more than the maximum price of the band above.

Setting Commission Rates At Category Level

Regardless of whether you intend to use commission value price bands or percentage value, you can use the same methods to apply these to entire categories.  There are two approaches to doing this:

a)  In the Departments & Categories menu

From the main menu in Cloud POS backoffice, navigate to Create & Manage Items, then Department & Categories.  You'll now see your department and category structure.  Locate the category to which you wish to apply a commission value, and click Edit.

You can then select the commission mode from the dropdown menu.  By default, this will be set to None.

If you select Percentage, this will reveal a field into which you can type the percentage value of commission that the Sale Rep will earn when they sell an item within this category:

Selecting the Value Bands mode from the dropdown menu will mean your Commission Value Price Bands will be applied to items in this category.  Keep in mind that, in order for sales of all items in the category to earn commission, you will need to have created value bands to cover the full price range of items in the category.

Blocked means that commission will not be applied to items in this category but, as explained previously, if an item in this category has a commission mode applied to it at item level, that will take precedence over the category level setting.

When you have made your commission mode selection, click Update to save your changes.  You'll see a tick appears next to the category in the Allow Commission column on the categories list.

b)  Using the Modify Category Commission Wizard

This wizard allows you to make changes to category commission modes and rates in bulk, and also provides a useful overview of the existing settings in place.

From the main menu in Cloud POS backoffice, navigate to Create & Manage Items, then Wizards & SIM Wizards.  Scroll down to the Modify Category Commission Wizard, then click the button titled Search And Select Categories. 

Use the filters to locate the categories you wish to update, and select the categories by checking the box in the leftmost column.  When you have added the necessary categories, click the Edit Categories button.

You can now set the Commission Modes and Commission % directly into the wizard, or export the data to an Excel file to work with outside of Cloud POS, to import back into the Wizard:

NOTE:  You will only be able to specify a Commission % if the corresponding Commission Mode is set to Percentage.

When you have made your changes, click Save Grid Changes, review the data, and when you are happy to proceed, click the button marked Commit Your Changes.  This will update your Cloud POS group accordingly.

Setting Commission Rates At Item Level

If you would prefer to apply more targeted commission rates than at the category level, you can dictate these on an item level instead.  Again, there are two approaches to achieving this:

a)  Directly in the Item record

You can set commission on an individual item, through its Item record.  From the main menu in Cloud POS backoffice, navigate to Create & Manage Items, then Items.  Use the filters to locate the item on which you wish to work, and click Edit.  When the Item record opens up, click on the Advanced tab and scroll to the section entitled Commission:

From the dropdown box, select the required Commission Mode.  By default this will be set to None.

If you select Percentage from the dropdown, the Percentage field will become editable and you'll be able to type in your value. 

Selecting Value Bands will apply the Commission Value Price Bands you have set up.

Selecting Blocked will mean commission will not be earned on sales of this item.  Remember that commission settings at item level take precedence over settings applied at category level, so if the item belongs to a category that has commission applied, you can exclude this item from the category-level commission mode by selecting Blocked.

When you have applied the required commission mode, click Save to update the item.

b)  Using the Modify Item Detail Wizard

This method allows you to update the commission settings for a number of items in bulk.

From the main menu in Cloud POS backoffice, navigate to Create & Manage Items, then Wizards & SIM Wizards.  Navigate to the Modify Item Detail Wizard and use one of the available options to add your items to the wizard.

You can now set the Commission Modes and Commission % directly into the wizard, or export the data to an Excel file to work with outside of Cloud POS, to import back into the Wizard:

When you have made your changes, click Save Grid Changes, review the data, and when you are happy to proceed, click the button marked Commit Your Changes. This will update your Cloud POS group accordingly.