You will most likely need to pay out commissions to your members every once in a while. This can easily be done through the Transaction->Pay Commissions menu. Instead of immediately adding the commission payouts as transactions to the member's accounts, they are added to pending withdrawals. You can then process all pending withdrawals, and physically send the funds, through the Transaction->Pending Withdrawals menu, which is explained later in this chapter.

8.6.1 Payment Information

This section contains two questions asking for different dates, and looks like:

The first question asks for the Payment Date. This should be set to the date the commissions are physically sent to the members. For example, if you are mailing commission checks or paying via PayPal, this should be the date you physically mail the checks, or send the funds through PayPal.

The next question asks for the Payment Period. This is the time period for which commissions are being paid out. Using the above example, commissions earned between April 1st, 2004 and April 30th 2004 will be paid out. Any commissions earned after April 30th will not be included in the commission run.

8.6.2 Pay Specific Member

Instead of paying all members, you can use this section to pay only specific members. Simply enter the username or ID number you would like to pay commission to, and click on the Pay Specific Member submit button. You may pay multiple members at once by entering a comma delimited list of members, such as jsmith,mike,moneyman,bob, would pay all four members at once.

8.6.3 Pay All Members

This section allows you to pay all members in your database at once, and looks something like:

All four questions in this section are optional. The first question asks for the minimum commission amount. If the amount owed to a member is less than the amount you specify, no commission will be paid out for the member. Instead, the commission owed will be held over until you pay commissions again.

The next three questions allow you to specify the status, member type, and payment method. If you specify any of these fields, commission will only be paid out for members who meet the criteria. Using the above example, commission will only be paid out to Active members who are owed at least $20 in commission.