A distributor is a sales agent represented by an individual or a company. Distributors can sell prepaid services to end users or refill a customer's balance on a straight commission basis.
For example, let's say a distributor's sales commission is 15% and the distributor sells a prepaid calling card with a $10 opening balance. When the customer pays him, he activates the customer's account. PortaBilling calculates the sales commission at $1.50 and subtracts that from the amount that equals to the the card's opening balance amount, which increases the distributor's balance by $8.5. Thus, the distributor earns $1.50 and owes you $8.50 from the sale.
The same thing happens when a distributor enters a cash payment and receives a payment commission from that payment amount.
To create a new distributor, fill in the distributor details and click Save.
Name
Type a unique name for the distributor.
Currency
Choose a currency to charge the distributor in.
Customer class
Choose a customer class for the distributor. A customer class defines a set of parameters shared among a certain category of distributors (such as grace period, invoice template, notification list, etc.).
Billing period
Choose a billing period for the distributor. This defines the frequency of invoicing.
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Daily – covers a 24-hour period.
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Weekly – covers a 7-day period (Monday through Sunday).
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Semimonthly – covers a period from the 1st to the 15th or from the 16th to the last day of the month.
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Monthly – covers the period from the 1st of the month to the last day of that month.
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Monthly (anniversary) – covers the period from the Nth day of the month to the day before the Nth day of the following month. N is the day of the month when the distributor was created.
If a distributor was created on March 19th, his invoices will always cover the period from the 19th of the current month to the 18th of the following month.
To avoid complications for distributors who were created on the 29th, 30th or 31st day of the month, their first billing period will cover the time until the 28th day of the following month, and thereafter will always cover the period from the 28th until the 28th.
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30 days – covers exactly 30 days.
If a distributor was created on March 20th, the first invoice will cover the period from March 20th to April 18th, the second invoice will cover the period from April 19th to May 18th, and so on.
Billing period timezone
Choose a billing period timezone in which to close the distributor’s billing period and generate invoices.
Default sales commission
Type in the percentage that a distributor gets from each sale. PortaBilling then calculates the amount of sales commission from the account’s opening balance.
If the account’s opening balance is $10 and the sales commission is 15%, the amount of sales commission is $1.50.
Sales commission applies when a distributor creates/activates a debit account or when you assign a distributor to an existing active debit account.
Default payment commission
Type in the percentage that a distributor receives when they collect cash from customers and enter it as a payment in PortaBilling. The system calculates the amount of payment commission from the payment amount.
If the distributor receives a $10 cash payment and the payment commission is 10%, the amount of payment commission is $1.
Credit limit
Set up a credit limit for the distributor. When their balance reaches that credit limit, the distributor is no longer allowed to activate/create accounts or enter payments until a payment is made.
