Skip to content
English - United Kingdom
Contact us
  • There are no suggestions because the search field is empty.

Why billings can change already-approved commission in a later period

When a commission scheme accumulates over a longer period than it pays out (for example, a 6-monthly or annual accumulation window with monthly payouts), confirming a billing from an earlier month can change what's payable in months that come after it — even months that have already been approved. This is expected behaviour, not an error.

Overview

Konquest calculates accumulating schemes by working out the total confirmed billing value across the whole accumulation window first, then allocating that total across earning bands in the order the billings fall within the window — not the order they were confirmed in. Because of this, a billing that's confirmed later but sits earlier in the window (by its start or calculation date) will always be recalculated as if it had been there from the start. Any billings after it in the window then shift up to fill the remaining bands, which can move them into a higher rate.

This most often catches people out when they expect updates to follow confirmation order rather than calculation order. A common assumption is: "May was approved at 10%, so April's new billings should be the ones that go into the 20% band." In practice, Konquest works the other way round — it treats the window as a single ordered sequence based on when each billing started or was calculated, not when it happened to be confirmed. So April, sitting earlier in the window, keeps first claim on the lower bands, and May — already approved — is recalculated with more of its value pushed into the higher bands.

Example

  • A user is on a 6-monthly accumulation scheme with monthly payouts.
  • May billings are confirmed first and approved, landing entirely in the 10% band.
  • April billings are confirmed afterwards. Because April sits earlier in the accumulation window, it's calculated first and takes the lower bands.
  • May is then recalculated: with April now occupying the lower bands, some (or all) of May's billings are pushed into the 20% band.
  • The result is an additional amount payable against May, on top of whatever is due for April — even though May had already been approved.

How to tell if this is what you're seeing

  • The scheme uses an accumulation period longer than the payout period (e.g. 6-monthly or annual accumulation with monthly payout).
  • A billing has recently been confirmed (or dropped out) for a month earlier in the accumulation window than a month that's already been approved.
  • A previously approved month now shows a different payable figure than before — higher if a new billing has moved in earlier in the window, lower (a clawback) if a previously confirmed billing has dropped out.
  • The same placement appears listed against updates for more than one month on the statement.

What this means for your statement

  • The additional amount shown against an already-approved month reflects the correct recalculated position, not a mistake or a duplicate charge.
  • Because one earlier billing can shift the band allocation for every month after it in the window, it's common to see updates appear across several months on the same statement at once, all stemming from the same placement. The same placement can therefore be listed against multiple months' updates — this isn't double counting, it's the ripple effect of that one placement moving the band boundaries for each affected month.
  • If there are still-unconfirmed billings earlier in the accumulation window, expect further updates once those confirm too — unconfirmed billings aren't held a place in the calculation, so they're treated as if they don't exist until they're confirmed.
  • The statement breakdown for any period shows exactly how the total has been allocated across bands, so you can see how the figure was reached.

It can also work in reverse

The same logic applies if a billing that was previously confirmed and included in the calculation later drops out — for example, if a deal falls through or an earlier confirmation is reversed. Removing that billing from an earlier point in the window has the opposite effect: every later month recalculates with less value occupying the lower bands, which can push billings that were previously in a higher band back down into a lower one. Because those later months may already have been approved and paid at the higher rate, this can produce a clawback — and, just as with an increase, that clawback can span several months at once if more than one later period was affected.

Why this happens

Accumulating schemes don't evaluate each month in isolation. They total the confirmed billing value across the whole window and work out which band each part of that total falls into, in window order. This means the order billings are confirmed in doesn't determine which band they land in — the order they occur in within the accumulation window does. A billing that lands earlier in the window will always take priority for the lower bands, regardless of when it was actually confirmed, and everything after it shifts accordingly.

Need help?

If a knock-on update doesn't reconcile the way you'd expect, or you're not sure whether your scheme is set up to accumulate this way, get in touch with your Konquest support contact with the user, scheme, and periods involved and we'll talk you through the breakdown.