Advisor Commission Submissions: From Send to Approval

When an advisor sends a commission submission, the agency gets a clean review step before that expected money enters the ledger. This catches a wrong supplier, reservation number, amount, split, or advisor before it becomes a matching or payout problem.

Roles in this article. "Advisor" means the person who submitted the booking. "Agency" means an owner or admin responsible for reviewing commissions and paying advisors.

The stages

A submission moves through these states:

• Pending — submitted, waiting for agency review.
• Needs attention — the agency sent it back with a note.
• Approved — the agency accepted it into commission tracking.
• Cancelled — terminal; the booking won't pay.

What the ADVISOR can do

Editing before approval. While a submission is pending, the agent can edit it directly — supplier, reservation number, guest, dates, and gross commission (their share recalculates from their split automatically).

Once approved, it's locked to the agency. This is by design — the approved record is the agency's to manage. The agent can't silently change an approved commission. Instead they use Request a change (below).

Withdrawing. An agent can withdraw a submission only while it's still pending and hasn't been sent. Withdrawals are recoverable — see Recovering a withdrawn submission below.

Request a change. When a booking changes after it's logged (cabin upgrade, reprice, added guest), the agent clicks Request a change on the submission, describes what's different, and the agency gets notified. The agency makes the edit and marks it done. This works at any stage, including approved.

Add more commission. Sometimes the supplier pays more on a commission that is already paid. A common case is a travel insurance policy whose premium went up when the client added airfare. The agent can't edit a paid commission, and filing the extra under the same confirmation number is blocked as a duplicate. Instead they open the paid submission's ⋯ menu and choose Add more commission, enter only the extra amount (plus the extra sale amount and a short note if they like), and see their share before filing.

• The extra goes in as its own submission, linked to the paid one and tagged Extra on a paid commission. It follows your normal approval rules, so with auto-approve on nobody has to touch it.
• The paid record is never reopened. Your payout history stays exactly as it was.
• When the supplier's statement carries the extra amount under the same number, it matches the new submission like any other line. It is not counted against the paid one, so it doesn't land as "two claims" for someone to sort.
• The agent's share uses the same split as the paid commission.
• If an agent tries to refile the same number and guest from Log a sale, the form offers Add more commission right there.

Request cancellation. If a trip cancels, the agent clicks Request cancellation with a reason. This does not cancel it outright — the agency confirms or declines.

What the AGENCY can do

From Commissions → Inbox → Pending submissions, the agency sees the advisor, supplier and guest, reservation number, gross commission, advisor share, and sent date. A clean row can be approved immediately; Review opens the details.

The agency can work these requests:

• Pending submissions — verify the dates, amount, split, advisor, and notes, then Approve or Send back with a note.
• Cancellation requests — confirm (→ Cancelled) or dismiss (stays active).
• Change requests — an advisor flagged a needed edit; make the change, then Mark done.
• Needs clawback — see Clawback below.
• Recently withdrawn — restore a submission removed by mistake.

Reassigning the advisor of record. Open a submission's Review panel and use Advisor of record → Reassign. This moves the booking — and its payout/1099 attribution — to a different advisor, and makes it appear in that advisor's view. Owners and admins only; advisors cannot reassign.

What approval does — and does not do

Approval confirms that the submission looks right and adds it to the commission ledger. It does not mean the supplier has paid, and it does not make the advisor payable by itself. The supplier statement still needs to arrive and the payment still needs to be matched.

The review queue is optional and does not block reconciliation. Clear it daily, weekly, or in batches—whatever gives your agency a dependable habit without slowing down money that has already arrived.

Wrong client or guest

Guest names on a submission are free-text (first/last name) — there's no separate "client record" to move it between. So a wrong name is simply corrected, not deleted and re-entered:

• While pending, the agent can edit it directly.
• At any stage, an owner/admin can fix it from the submission's Review panel → Guest → Edit guest (logged to the history).
• An agent on a locked submission uses Request a change to ask the agency to fix it.

Duplicate submissions

If the same booking is submitted twice while the first is still a draft, JourneyFuse updates the existing draft rather than creating a second row — so accidental duplicates don't pile up. (Once the first has been sent to the agency, a re-submit does create a new record.)

Cancellations and clawback

When a submission is cancelled after the advisor was already paid (agencies pay agent-portal advisors outside JourneyFuse), JourneyFuse raises a Needs clawback flag on the commission inbox. JourneyFuse never silently reverses a payout — it flags the commission so the agency can recover the funds and then click Mark resolved.

On the full-app side, cancelling a booking automatically writes off any unpaid commission and flags any already-paid commission for clawback the same way.

Policy and activity records

A submission's type (Trip / Policy / Activity) is chosen at submit time, and each is its own standalone record. An insurance policy or an excursion is edited or cancelled independently — there's no parent booking to touch.

Audit trail and recovery

Every submission keeps a history: created, edited, withdrawn, resubmitted, change requested, cancellation requested/confirmed, reassigned, guest edited, and restored. Nothing is silently lost. The agency can see the full timeline under History in a submission's Review panel (who did what, and when).

Recovering a withdrawn submission

Withdrawing is a soft delete — the record is hidden from active lists but kept. The agency sees it under Commissions → Inbox → Recently withdrawn and can click Restore to bring it back in its prior state. (Owners/admins only.)

Gotchas worth training on

• Approved = locked for agents. Agents use Request a change, not direct editing, on an approved submission.
• Extra money on a paid commission is Add more commission, not a change request. The agent files only the extra. Owners and admins can't refile a paid commission under the same number either: JourneyFuse refuses rather than overwrite the paid record. Once the supplier's extra payment is in, an owner can also use Add a bonus payment on the commission itself.
• Cancellation is a request, not an instant action. The agency confirms it.
• Reassigning changes who gets paid. It updates payout and 1099 attribution, so it's owner/admin-only.
• Editing a pending submission doesn't re-notify the agency — it stays pending; the agency sees the updated values on next review.
• Editing an approved submission does not re-trigger review or any downstream automation (e.g. ID verification / payment-setup webhooks fire once, on the first booking only).
• An agent's first-booking webhook fires when their first commission is approved, not when it's filed, so a claim you send back or reject never counts as their first booking. Every first-booking event carries first_booking: true and a source (commission or trip_booking), so an automation can catch every agent with one filter.

"Commission missing?" — the form and the waiting period (host agencies)

Advisors see a Commission missing? note at the bottom of their My Submissions and Payouts pages, and owners/admins see the same note on the agency Commissions page. It points at your own form and states your own waiting period: "If it's been at least N days since your client's travel end date, report it."

Both halves are yours to set, under Settings → Advisors → Agent portal links (scroll to the bottom of the Advisors page):

The card only appears for owners and admins on a host agency with advisors, and it saves as you type — there's no Save button, just the "Saved" indicator in the card header.

Fill from confirmation

Both commission forms — the advisor portal and the agency's Quick Add — can read the booking confirmation for you. Click Fill from confirmation, then paste the confirmation email or upload a PDF or screenshot.

• It picks the number the commission statement pays against. A Viator email has two numbers: the itinerary number (starts 18) and the booking reference (BR-14…). Viator's statement only ever prints the booking reference, so that's the one filled in. The itinerary number is kept as a second number for matching.
• It fills the guest name, travel date and product. Every filled field is marked Filled from confirmation — check them before you send.
• It never overwrites what you typed. If a field already holds something different, you'll see both values and a Replace? button for that field.
• One email, several tours? Pick the one you're filing. Each tour is its own commission.
• Confirmations don't show commission. Enter the amount yourself.
• Nothing found? You'll see a short note and can fill the form in by hand. A scanned PDF with no text can't be read, so paste the email text instead.

Viator is supported today. For other suppliers the link is still there, but it will say it found nothing.

Related

• Commissions Workflows by Role
• When Clients Change Their Mind
• Commission Reconciliation