Commission · rates, review and approval

DiveOps works out staff commission from your day-to-day records: published trip sheets, sign-offs and payments, and shows its working. You review and approve each amount on Finance → Commissions; approved amounts flow into payroll.

When you'd use this

Setting the standard commission rates your centre pays.
Reviewing and approving what each instructor or guide is owed.
Checking why a suggested amount is what it is.
Spotting anything where the money on file no longer matches reality.

Setting the default rates

Settings → Commissions holds your centre-wide defaults. Most centres pay a % of the price; some pay a set amount instead: so much for each student on a course, or so much for each dive a guide leads ("per dive", also called "per tank").

Courses: % of price, Per course (an amount for each student; two instructors split it by their share) or Per dive (an amount times the course's number of dives, split by share).
Fun dives and trips: % of price or Per dive (an amount times the dives each guide leads on the trip sheet, else the booking's number of dives).
One person paid differently: open them on Team, then the Commission card. Each row can be Centre default, % of price, Per course (courses only) or Per dive, with their own amount. Their % is one figure for every row set to % of price.
One menu item paid differently: on the Dive Menu, open the item, then Commission, and pick Per dive with an amount.
Shop sales: a default retail % for the till, unless the salesperson has their own retail rate on their Team profile.

The most specific rate wins: the person's own rate first, then the menu item's, then the centre's. The settings page shows how many team members have their own rate.

Bundles (for example Open Water + Advanced): per course pays for each course in the bundle, so a 2-course bundle at ฿2,500 per course pays ฿5,000 ("฿2,500 per course × 2 courses").
Whole-group trips (one price for the group): the rate is shared by the group's bookings, so the guide is paid once ("2 dives × ฿500 shared by 4").
Changing a rate. Pay uses the rate in force when the work is signed off. Lines still waiting update to a new rate (the centre's, a person's or a menu item's) within a few minutes. Lines already earned, approved or paid keep theirs.
Never more dives than were sold. Per dive counts the dives on each guide's trip sheet, but never more in total than the booking has. If a diver sits on two sheets, or does an extra dive, add the dive to the booking so it is paid. Once a guide's line is approved, a sheet added later doesn't change it.

Per dive needs a number of dives. Set it on the menu item or on the booking (reopen a completed booking first). Without one, the line shows No dive number yet, pays nothing and can't be approved; find these under the No dive number filter on Finance → Commissions. Set the number, then press Recalculate on the entry.

On the Commissions list, payroll and payslips each line says how it was worked out, for example "6 dives × ฿500" or "฿2,500 per course".

How an amount is worked out

Commission is always worked out per booking, never per order: a customer who books several products in one website order earns your staff commission on each booking on its own, exactly as if they had been booked separately. It is always worked out on the dive-menu price as it stood when the booking was made: never on what the customer actually paid. A discount, an agent's net rate or an add-on (like a room) changes what the customer pays, not what your staff earn; and if you raise a menu price later, bookings already sold keep the price they were sold at. The customer must still have fully paid their own bill before commission is released.

Courses: the instructor who owns the group earns the course rate on the course's menu price. A co-taught course splits by the percentages set on the group.
Activities and packs (fun diving and similar): pay follows the published trip sheets. Each day's dives are credited to the guide who led that day's group, so a pack guided by two people over two days splits between them automatically. When two guides shared one outing, set an Add staff split on that outing group (Dive Groups → Activities). Each is then paid for that group's dives only, at their own rate.
Dive counts are capped at what the service sells: a one-dive service placed on a two-dive boat counts as one dive, so a split between guides stays fair and "of" figures read honestly ("1 of 1", not "2 of 1").

Expand an entry (the arrow on the left) to see How this was worked out: one line per trip-sheet day, with the site, the guide, the dives and that day's slice of the pay. The lines always add up to exactly what each person is due.

The booking's own page shows the same working in its Staff pay section (below). Pay figures there are for finance roles only: someone with booking or dive-group access (e.g. reception) sees who teaches or guides the booking, but not the money. Amounts, shares and the working show only to team members with commission access.

Staff pay on a booking

Every booking has a Staff pay section, just below Payments. It answers one question: who is paid for this booking, how much, and where it stands.

One line per person: their name and job title, their share (for example "50% share"), what they earn on this booking, how it was worked out (for example "10% of" the menu price), and where it stands: Upcoming (the booking hasn't happened or isn't signed off yet), Ready, Approved or Paid.
Who decides the pay is written above the lines: a published trip sheet ("Paid from the trip sheet for" the day it ran), a trip sheet or outing still being planned ("not final yet"), or a course group's split. Each links to where you change it.
Assign (nobody yet) or Change instructor appears when the booking's own instructor or a course group decides the pay. A short window walks you through it:
1. Who: pick the person.
2. Who moves (a course in a group only): just this diver, or everyone in the group. Changing the whole group needs payroll access too.
3. Set pay (only if the old person had pay set on this booking): keep that figure for the new person, or use their usual rate.
4. Pay check (only if pay is approved or paid): it says in plain words what happens. Approved pay moves to the new person and goes back for approval. Paid pay asks one question: take it back (pick an open pay period where it fits) or they keep it. A reason is needed. For a course it does what the Planner does: the diver joins that instructor's group, or a new group is started. For a fun dive or trip it sets the instructor only. Pro programmes keep Open Dive Groups.
Who can change approved or paid pay here: people who approve commission, when your centre has Change and fix pay on bookings switched on. Anyone else sees a short note saying who can change it, and where. Pay that is not approved yet can be changed by anyone who can assign instructors.
Earlier pay lists anything paid before a change, with what happened to it: Taken back (and in which period) or Kept.
Cancelled bookings don't pay staff: the lines stay visible, with no actions.

The Instructor box under Details shows the same person; Change instructor on Staff pay (or Assign on Staff pay) takes you to the section.

Changing someone's pay on one booking

When your centre has Change and fix pay on bookings switched on, people who approve commission see Change pay on each line of a booking's Staff pay.

Pick a quick pick (your centre's usual choices, for example a percentage or an amount) or type your own: % is a percentage of the menu price, Amount is a set amount. It is that person's own pay for this booking, whatever their share, and it always wins over their usual rate. A whole-group item is always paid by an amount.
A reason is optional; who changed it and when are always kept on the commission's history.
If that pay was already approved, saving sends it back for approval at the new amount (auto-approve, if you use it, approves it again).
Back to usual rate removes the change and works the pay out again from the usual rate.
Pay that has been paid can't be changed here. If it went to the wrong person, use Change instructor (above), or Reverse in Finance → Commissions.

Set your quick picks in Settings → Commissions → Pay on bookings (up to 8; move them up or down to set the order). The switch itself is turned on for your centre by DiveOps for now.

Approving commission

Open Finance → Commissions. The To review tab lists everything waiting, newest first, 100 to a page (use Previous and Next at the bottom). Type part of a diver's name in Search diver name to find them on any tab. The numbers on the tabs and the filter buttons always count the whole tab, not just the divers your search found.
Click Approve on an entry. The pop-up shows two checks: Signed off and Paid in full.
If both are green, one click confirms it.
If either check isn't met, or you change an amount, you must give a reason (tap a quick-reason button to fill it in one press, or type your own). The reason is kept forever on the entry's history.
Approving starts a 10-second Undo window in case of a slip.

Approved amounts appear in that pay period's payroll. Paying the period locks them onto payslips.

Approve several at once

When several entries are ready, the To review tab shows an Approve all ready button with a count. It approves, in one step, every entry that is both Signed off and Paid in full (the same two checks as the single Approve), each into the open pay period covering its date. Entries that still need review, a payment, a guide, or a changed amount are left exactly as they were.

After confirming, you'll see how many were approved and how many were skipped. An entry is skipped if there's no open pay period covering its date. Open one in Payroll and click again.
Very large batches are approved up to a few hundred at a time; if some are left, the button reappears with the new count. Just click it again.
Anything approved this way can still be reopened individually afterwards.

Auto-approve

Ready commission can approve itself. New centres start with Auto-approve ready commission switched on at the top of the Commissions screen; switch it off there if you would rather approve each entry yourself.

DiveOps then approves every entry that is signed off and paid in full into the open pay period for its date, automatically, within a couple of minutes. Nothing is locked yet. Approving just puts it in that period's payroll; you can still reopen or reassign any entry before you pay.
It only ever touches clean entries. Anything still needing review, a payment, or a guide is left for you.
If ready pay has no open pay period, nothing is approved and an alert appears in your error log so you know to open the period. If you don't run payroll in DiveOps yet (no pay periods at all), nothing is approved and no alert is raised.
You can still approve, reopen, or reassign any entry yourself at any time. Turn it off whenever you like.

Correcting who is paid after a group has run

If a finished trip or course ends up on the wrong person, a guide swapped at the last minute, or a booking put on the wrong instructor, you can move the pay to the right person, without undoing anything. The money moves (it is never created or lost) and every screen, Commissions, the Planner and payslips, updates together.

The Reassign box lets you give the pay to one person, or split it between several by percentage: pick a person, then Add a guide to split and set each share (they must total 100%). If the pay was already approved, reassigning reopens it for you to approve again; already-paid pay must be reversed on the Paid tab first.

A course · expand the entry on To review and use Reassign instructor to make one person the sole instructor of the whole group.
A fun trip · expand the entry; in How this was worked out, each outing has a Reassign button, and Reassign all to… moves every outing on that booking to one person at once. (If your centre records fun trips on a published trip sheet, change the guide on the trip sheet instead: the pay follows automatically.)
You can also reassign from the Planner: open History → Completed and reassign a finished outing or cohort there.

Reassigning a whole outing moves everyone who was on it, because a trip has one guide.

Once a commission has been approved you can still correct it. On the Reviewed tab, expand the entry and use Reassign: it reopens the pay, moves it to the right person, and sends it back to To review for you to approve again. Because a trip has one guide and a course has one instructor, this reopens everyone who shared that outing or cohort, so they can be approved again with the new person. Commission that has already been paid is locked. To correct it, use Reverse on the Paid tab: you choose an open pay period where that person has earned enough to cover it, the paid amount is taken back there (a minus line called "Taken back"), and the booking's pay is worked out again from today's records. The new pay goes to whoever the booking now shows; if that is the same person at a different amount, it waits for you to approve it. The original payslip stays as it was. The new payslip shows the corrected line as Corrected: and the minus line as Taken back:.

If a take-back would leave someone's pay below nil in that period, Pay staff says so and links here. Use Move to a later period on the take-back (Reviewed tab) to move it to a period where their pay covers it.

If someone was paid before a correction and is now paid again on the same booking, their new line waits on To review with the note Was paid … before the correction, so it is never paid twice without you looking.

The Held tab

Held is pay that's waiting on a trip. A record shows here when a diver's trip sheet isn't published yet, or they were taken off the boat. Nothing is lost. Publish their trip sheet with them on it and the pay moves back to To review on its own. If it's a future or unpaid booking, just leave it: it will move over when the trip actually happens. The tab only appears when something is held, and if wages you expected seem to be missing, check here first.

The Needs a look tab

This tab appears when a commission you'd already approved has since changed underneath it: the booking was cancelled, refunded, repriced or moved to a different course, or the split went stale after a reopen. The pay still stands as approved, so nothing happens automatically. Each entry shows the reason. Check it, and if it's wrong, reopen it with a reason to correct it; otherwise leave it. This is the same set the Pay staff screen warns about before a pay run, so it's the place to clear those warnings. Archived entries are never listed here. If the check ever can't run, the tab says so instead of looking empty.

When the person paid no longer matches who the records show (for example "Paid to Ana, the booking now shows Ben"), the entry says so and has Open booking: use Change instructor on the booking's Staff pay to put it right.

Once a booking's pay is approved or paid, its instructor or course group can't be changed anywhere else (the Planner, Dive Groups or an overdue booking's new dates). You'll see "Pay for this booking is approved. Use Change instructor on the booking." Use the booking's Change instructor, which asks what happens to the pay.

Reopening an approved commission

Reopen (on the Reviewed tab) puts an approved commission back into review with the same people and the same split it was approved with. Reopening never recalculates anything by itself. (If an amount was manually overridden at approval, the row returns showing its standard suggested figure: the override and its reason stay on the entry's history.)
A reopened commission is also protected from automatic recalculation: day-to-day changes elsewhere (payments, trip sheets, group edits) won't alter it while it sits in review.
If the group's instructor split has changed since the amounts were set, or the booking has been cancelled, the reopened row shows a Split changed since flag with a Recalculate button. Pressing it asks you to confirm, then re-works the commission from the current setup. Or simply approve the restored amounts if they're still right: the choice is always yours, never automatic.
If the booking's course or price changes while a commission sits in review (for example the diver switched course after it was reopened), the row shows Course changed or Price changed. Expand it to see the old and new course and price. Approve is turned off on that row until you press Recalculate, so a commission can never be approved at the old figure. Recalculate, check the new amount, then approve.
Commission that has already been paid can't be reopened. Use Reverse on the Paid tab instead: it takes the pay back in an open pay period and works the booking's pay out again.

Tracking unused dives (packs)

Every multi-dive booking's dive wallet, "4 of 10 used · 6 left", counted from published trip sheets, shows on the Activities tab of Dive Groups, next to the diver's name and on their booking. A diver stays in the pool there until every dive is used, so nobody's remaining dives can quietly fall out of sight. (This replaced the old "Open packs" panel on the trip sheet.)

Already paid someone outside DiveOps?

Sometimes a commission was already settled by hand, an earlier payroll, or cash on the day, before it reached the approve list. On any Signed off row, use Already paid (next to Approve). It asks who and how much, you type a short reason, and the entry moves to the Archived tab labelled "Already paid". DiveOps never pays it again, and it stops showing as waiting to approve. Changed your mind? Open the Archived tab and press Undo to put it back on the review list.

This is separate from the customer's own payment: "Already paid" is about paying the guide or instructor, not about whether the diver has paid you.

What your team sees

Each team member's My Pay page shows a My commission so far card: a live list of what they've earned from published trip sheets, before payroll. If a trip they guided is missing, the day's trip sheet is what to check: it is the record pay is worked out from.

Tips

🟢 Publish trip sheets promptly: publishing is what turns a day's diving into evidence for pay.
🟢 Rate changes only affect future, unpaid periods. A paid payslip is frozen.
One-off bonuses aren't set here: add them on the person's Team profile Bonuses card.

Troubleshooting

A guide's pay looks wrong on an activity → the day's trip sheet may still be a draft, or the diver isn't placed in a group on it. Fix the sheet; the amount updates itself.
The approve pop-up demands a reason → the entry isn't Signed off or isn't Paid in full, or you changed the amount; the typed reason is your audit trail for approving it anyway.
A guide says a trip is missing from their My Pay card → check that day's published trip sheet has them as the group's guide.
There's no Reassign button on a fun trip → your centre records that trip on a published trip sheet, so change the guide on the trip sheet itself (the pay follows), or the commission is already approved or paid. Reopen or reverse it first.

team.md, finance-payroll.md, trip-sheet.md