Mentor & Trainer Commission Splits

If your agency runs a mentorship program — a senior advisor brings in a new agent and earns a slice of their bookings — JourneyFuse can track and pay that split automatically. You configure the mentor relationship once, and every commission that comes in for the mentee gets divided across both people at payout time.

How It Works

Three pieces fit together:

1. Mentor relationships define who mentors whom and at what percentage (e.g. "Tim Peterson is Marcus Rivera's mentor at 10%, effective from Jan 1, 2026").
2. Commission allocations are the split rows on each individual commission. When a commission lands for one of Marcus's bookings, JourneyFuse auto-creates two allocation rows: 90% to Marcus, 10% to Tim.
3. Payouts pay each allocation to its own payee. Marcus's slice goes on Marcus's payout batch; Tim's slice goes on Tim's. The two can be paid on different days, in different batches, by different methods.

The math is locked the moment a slice is paid — future changes to the mentor percentage don't retroactively shift historical earnings.

Setting Up a Mentor Relationship

Go to Settings → Commissions → Mentors (owner / admin only). Add a relationship with:

• Booking agent — the person whose bookings will be split
• Mentor — the person receiving the slice
• Mentor percentage — must be between 0% and 100%
• Effective from / to — optional date bounds so a mentorship that runs out can be expired without deleting history

One booking agent can have multiple mentors. Splits paid from the agent's share must add up to less than 100%, so the booking agent always keeps the remainder. Splits paid from the agency's share don't count toward that limit.

Example: Marcus Rivera has Tim Peterson as a mentor at 10%. When Marcus closes a $245 commission, Tim's allocation gets $24.50 and Marcus's gets $220.50. Both rows appear on the right person's Advisor payouts page.

Who Pays It: the Agent's Share or the Agency's

Every relationship has a Who pays it choice. Either way, the percent is measured against the booking agent's share.

• Agent's share (the default) — the split comes out of the agent's commission. With a 10% split on a $1,000 agent share, the mentor gets $100 and the agent keeps $900.
• Agency's share — the agent keeps the whole share and the agency pays the split on top, from what it keeps. With a 10% split on a $1,000 agent share, the agent keeps $1,000, the mentor or team lead gets $100, and the agency's take drops by $100.

Pick Agency's share when a team lead's override is the agency's arrangement with that person, not something the agent gives up.

Example: a booking pays $21.79 gross. The agent's split is 70%, so her share is $15.25. Her team lead gets 10% of that share, $1.53, paid by the agency. The agent is paid $15.25, the team lead $1.53, and the agency keeps $5.01.

Who can see it. An agency-paid split is visible only to owners, admins and the person being paid. The booking agent sees their own full share and nothing about the split.

On Advisor payouts the team lead's line is badged paid by agency, and the booking agent's Agency column already has it taken off. Reports and the dashboard's "Agency Keeps" figures subtract it too.

Switching an existing relationship. A rule applies to new commissions. To move open commissions over, open each one's Splits and set the team lead row's Paid from to Agency's share. Rows that were already paid stay as they were.

What Agents See

Each agent sees their own allocation rows in commissions, including the mentor slices flowing in from people they mentor. The page shows a small "Mentor cut · from " badge on each row, so there's no mystery about where the money came from.

Mentees see a similar badge on the rows that get partially redirected to their mentor, so trust stays intact.

Paying Out

Payouts work the same as normal — the difference is the unit of payment is now the allocation, not the commission entry. Open /commissions/payouts and you'll see each payee with the sum of their allocations.

When you click Pay, only that payee's allocations are marked paid. The commission_entry's agent_paid flag flips only when every allocation on it has been paid (so a row stays "in flight" until both the booking agent and the mentor have collected).

Editing or Ending a Relationship

• Change the percentage: edit the agent_relationships row in Settings → Commissions → Mentors. New commissions follow the new rule. Old commissions are locked at the rate that was active when they were received.
• End the mentorship: set an effective_to date. After that date, new commissions land at 100% on the booking agent — no mentor slice.
• Pause without ending: set effective_to to a future date you may revisit.

What This Doesn't Do (Yet)

• Tiered overrides (mentor's mentor takes a slice too). Today we only support direct mentor pairs. If you need a 3-level upline, contact us.
• Per-booking overrides of the mentor split (e.g. "this group commission goes 50/50"). Today the split is per agent. Per-booking override is on the roadmap — let us know if it blocks you.
• Mentor split on group lead commissions outside the agent_relationships table. If your group commission model needs different rules, talk to us.

FAQ

Does the mentor's slice change my commission report numbers? Yes — your reports show your actual take, after any mentor slice has been carved out. That's the "true" earned commission for IATA/CLIA qualification and 1099 calculations.

Can I see the mentor split history for a commission? Yes — open any commission entry and the allocations list is visible. Locked rows (already paid) can't be edited; unlocked rows can.

What happens if I delete a mentor relationship after it's been used? Historical allocations stay intact (they're locked at payout). The deletion only stops new commissions from being split.

Can a mentor see what their mentees are booking? No — the mentor only sees the commission slices they're receiving, not the underlying client/trip details unless they're assigned to the trip directly. Standard role-based visibility applies.

What if the mentor is also a support_staff role? Then they can't see commission information at all — including their own mentor slices. Pick the role intentionally; an active mentor should be agent or admin.