NextCommission – Take 44 / NextAgency

Carrier Connect simplifies commission statement imports for agencies by automatically downloading carrier commission statements and making them available for review and processing. This guide explains how the process works and what agencies need to ensure for a smooth import experience.

How It Works:
1. Carrier Connect Downloads Statements: Carrier Connect retrieves commission statements from participating carriers.
2. Statements Appear in NextAgency: The downloaded commission statements are listed under Carriers > Pending Imports in NextAgency.
3. Import: You can change the carrier by clicking Change Carrier. Click Finish to start and complete the import process. To remove a file from the list, click Delete.
Key Requirement for Successful Imports

For the commission statements to appear in NextAgency, the carrier names in Carrier Connect must exactly match the carrier names in NextAgency. Any discrepancies in naming may result in statements not being imported properly./

Please get in touch with NextAgency support if you need any assistance!
NextAgency is our flagship offering, providing a comprehensive agency management system complete with customer relationship and marketing tools. NextAgency delivers a host of automation tools, seamless integrations with various software platforms, and robust reporting capabilities.

NextCommission is our commission tracking and sub-agent management tool. NextCommission enables agencies to easily upload commission statements, track compensation (commissions, overrides, fees and bonuses), generate sub-agent commission statements, and product incisive business reports.

To deploy the solution that best fits their needs, agencies can purchase NextCommission as a fully-integrated add-on for NextAgency or as a stand-alone product: NextCommission Solo. As those needs evolve, agencies may easily transition between NextCommission versions..

Here is a summary of the differences between the two products:

And here is a much more detailed comparison of their features:

You can download the detailed comparison here:
NextAgency makes it possible to import carrier commission statements from an Excel file. To import commissions, follow these steps:
1. On the dashboard, click Partners > Carriers.
2. Find the Carrier for which you are going to import the statements.
3. Click Actions > Commissions to open the commission statements page for this carrier.
4. You can click on Import Statement.
1. On the import page that opens, you have the following options:
- Date Received: Specify the statement receipt date. The current date is filled in by default.
- Commission Statement Total: You can enter the total commission amount here to verify it later.
- Download Default Template: Download the default commission input template provided by NextAgency.
- Advance Settings: You can set Commission Statement Import Settings here such as Rows to skip, Given date format, Keywords rows to skip, and Product Type Conversions.
- Retrieve Work: You can retrieve your saved work using this option.
1. Then you can either enter the data into the template or upload your own file and then map the fields against those of NextAgency. Once you upload the sheet, click on Map Headers.
2. When mapping the headers, you can see your headers (from the sheet) on the left and system headers on the right. If the headers do not match, you can select the matching header from the drop-down.
3. Select the Ignore checkbox next to the header(s) that you do not want to import.
4. When ready, click Continue.
1. The system will verify the uploaded data by finding the matching cases based on criteria such as coverage, group name, carrier policy number, paid to date, premium amount, commission rate, commission paid, number of employees, date received, and case name. Please note that if you try to change the data manually, NextAgency will alert you that it could not found any associated cases.
1. When ready, click Continue and then click on Import. The system will then display the uploaded commissions.
The next time you click Actions > Commissions for the carrier record, you will see the summary of the imported commission statement, including the date received, paid to date, total premium, total commissions, and actions.

Under Actions, you can either access the Details of the statement, i.e. review the imported records, or Delete the statement. Please note that to protect the statement records, you should enter DELETE in the provided input field and click Confirm.

It is also possible to view the commissions from the case page. To do it, open the case record and go to the Commissions tab. The Commissions tab is divided into several sub-tabs:
- Commissions. Here you can view all commission records pertaining to the case. The records are organized according to carriers. Click the name of the carrier to expand the relevant commission statements.
- Overrides and Bonuses. Here you can view all override commissions and bonuses that are related to the case.
- Split. Here you can split the commissions between the sub-agents.
To set up commission splits, go to the Split subtab and click Manage Split Settings.

In the Manage Split Settings window, fill in the following information:
- Select sub-agents: Choose the sub-agent with whom you are going to split the commission.
- Schedule: You can select the saved schedules from this menu.
- Coverage Type: Choose the type of coverage on which commissions will be split.
- Carrier: Choose all the Carriers that you want to apply this split for.
- Commission Rate Type: Specify the type of the commission rate to be shared with the sub-agent - percentage, per employee per month, or flat amount.
- Commission Split: Enter the corresponding percentage or amount that will be shared with the sub-agent.
- Effective Date: Choose the date on which the split commission becomes effective.
- End Date: Choose the end date for the split commission. This is especially useful if the commission split changes over time. You should create a separate commission split for each time period. If you leave this field blank the commission split will continue indefinitely.
- Compensation: Select the form(s) of compensation for the split - commissions, overrides, and/or bonuses.
- Comment: You can add Comments on this split here.
When ready, click Save. The split commission record is added to the list.

It is also possible to edit the split record by clicking on the edit icon.
Here's how you can add commissions manually in NextAgency:
1. First, go to the Carriers from the Partners drop-down and select the carrier you want to add commissions for.
2. Next to the Carrier record, click Actions > Commissions.
3. You will see a list of all commission statements that you have received from this carrier. From here, you can manually enter commissions one by one by clicking Enter Statement. Alternatively, you can import a spreadsheet of commissions by clicking Import Statement.
After you click Enter Statement, you will get a set of fields that you can fill in with the commission statement data. However, you can also click Get Previous Data and get a list of all commission statements that you have previously uploaded into the system.

In this list, you can review the statement details, and then click Import to pre-populate the fields and edit them according to the latest data.

Validate the Commissions.

After that, click Upload Commissions.

As a result, the system will add the statements to the list.
The Commissions page presents commission records that are associated with a case.

You can view the carrier card by clicking its name in the list. If you need to delete a record, click Delete in the far-right column.

Here you can also set up the commission splits with other agents whether they are part of your agency or independent. To set up commission splits, go to the Split subtab and click Manage Split Settings.

In the Manage Split Settings window, fill in the following information:
- Select sub-agents: Choose the sub-agent with whom you are going to split the commission.
- Schedule: You can select the saved schedules from this menu.
- Coverage Type: Choose the type of coverage on which commissions will be split.
- Carrier: Choose all the Carriers that you want to apply this split for.
- Commission Rate Type: Specify the type of the commission rate to be shared with the sub-agent - percentage, per employee per month, or flat amount.
- Commission Split: Enter the corresponding percentage or amount that will be shared with the sub-agent.
- Effective Date: Choose the date on which the split commission becomes effective.
- End Date: Choose the end date for the split commission. This is especially useful if the commission split changes over time. You should create a separate commission split for each time period. If you leave this field blank the commission split will continue indefinitely.
- Compensation: Select the form(s) of compensation for the split - commissions, overrides, and/or bonuses.
- Comment: You can add Comments on this split here.
When ready, click Save. The split commission record is added to the list.

It is also possible to edit the split record.

The Commission tab provides only an overview of your commissions. For more in-depth information, NextAgency contains several reports to help you analyze commissions, create sub-agent commission statements, find missing commissions, and much more.
Do you use the same commission split over-and-over? Do you need to apply this common commission schedule to multiple cases? You could do it one client at a time. Yawn. It's a lot faster and easier to apply a commission schedule to multiple cases at once. Here's how:

Creating a Commission Schedule
1. In the navigation bar, click on Sub-Agents.
2. Click on the Schedules tab.
3. In the upper-right corner of the Schedules page, click on Add Schedule.
4. In the Add New Schedule window that pops up, give your commission schedule a descriptive name and fill in the following data.
- Coverage Type: Select the type of the coverage for your schedule.
- Commission Rate Type: Select one of the three options - percentage, per employee per month, or flat amount. For example, if you select Percentage and enter 50 in the Commission Split field, it will mean that this sub-agent is receiving 50% of the commission on this case.
- Commission Split: Enter the size of the commission.
- Compensation: Select the compensation type(s) for your schedule.
- Comment: Add Comments to the schedule.
5. When ready, click Add.

Assigning the Commission Schedule

To add the commission schedule to multiple cases at once, select the required cases in the table on the homepage, and then click Actions > Assign Sub-Agent above the table.

In the Manage Split Settings window that pops up, select the sub-agent and choose the schedule in the Schedule field. The system will automatically fill in the fields related to this schedule. All you have to do is select the effective date. Please note that we only allocate commissions to sub-agents that are received. So if you set the effective date of the schedule to a date before the first case you are working on, it will not mess up the splits with the cases that have a later effective date. When ready, click Save.

How It Works:

Key Requirement for Successful Imports

Creating a Commission Schedule

Assigning the Commission Schedule