Custom Settings allow an Agent to have different Commission details apply other than the standard Commission Rates or default Agent values. Settings can be created based on Issuer and Product Type for Advance Months, As Earned, Alternate Contract, and Alternate Upline.
The selection for ‘Any’ for Issuer or Product Type in Agent Custom Settings means the same as ‘all.’ So, if you have one setting for ‘Any’ Issuer, there are validations if you are making a setting for one Issuer that would be different than for all Issuers. (The concept of ‘Any’ when used in Commission Rates is different in that for Commission Rates it means ‘unless specified.’ See the Commission Rates section for details.)
Advance months
This setting affects the number of months of Advance paid with some constraints.
If the Advance for a calculation in a cycle comes from a Pay Code, an Advance setting will not allow the advance to be greater than the Pay Code Advance. So, if the Pay Code is for 3 months, and the setting is for 6, only 3 months of Advance will be paid.
If the Advance for a calculation in a cycle comes from the Commission Plan Rates, the Advance allowed from a setting can be greater than the Plan Rate Advance. So, if Pay Code allowed for an Advance did not specify Advance Months (Default), and the Commission Rates called for 6 months, a Custom Setting for 9 months would calculate 9 months Advance. More often, the Advance Months in a Custom Setting is used to limit the number of months, for example where the average Advance from the Issuer is 6 months, but the Agent prefers to only receive 3 months of Advance.
An Agent can be set up for As Earned in Agent details, and then use a Custom Setting for exceptions they want to make for that rule. So, for example, an Agent may want all commissions As Earned except for Life Insurance. However, the Agent cannot be checked for As Earned and have Custom Setting for All Issuers plus All Product Types for an Advance month value as that would contradict with the As Earned setting.
When an Agent is terminated, a company often set them to As Earned. In that case, the admin must also check to make sure that any custom settings to pay Advances need to be removed.
As Earned
The check box for As Earned in Agent details can then have Custom Settings used as an exception basis to receive Advances. When the As Earned check box in Agent Details is not used, then Custom Settings can be used on an exception basis when As Earned is to apply to specific Issuer and/or Product Type combinations.
A custom setting with As Earned checked cannot be created for All Issuers plus All Product Types as for that scenario the As Earned checkbox in Agent Details is to be used.
Alternate Contract
This setting allows for specific Issuers and Product Type combinations for an Agent to be paid according to Commission Rates from a different Contract than the default Contract in Agent Details. After running a Commission Cycle the Results page will display the Alternate Contract and the rates will come in from that Contract. The Commission Distribution in the Policy will also reflect the Alternate Contract and associated Rates.
Alternate Upline
This setting changes the flow of the Upline to be used when calculating commissions to create a new hierarchy. Take for example, Agent D reports to their Upline of Agent C, who then Reports to Agent B, and from then to Agent A. If Agent D has an Alternate Upline of Agent B for an Issuer, Commissions would then only be generated for Agents D, Agent B and Agent A.
The system will prevent selecting an Agent from having themselves as an Alternate Upline in custom settings. In the Upline value in the Agent Details page they can select themselves, which means they will be a top level in a hierarchy, but the system will prevent this in a custom setting.
Custom Settings Add page.
Multiple Custom Settings can be created if they do not share the same Issuer and Product Type Combination.
Custom Settings – multiple settings displayed
