How to Track, Audit, and Pay Staff Commissions in Collar

Collar calculates staff commissions from your bookings using rules you define per staff member and per service. This guide covers setting up commission rules, generating a commission statement for a pay period, auditing the line items behind it, adjusting amounts, and exporting the result for payroll.

Prerequisites

Access to Reporting, available to Supervisor, Admin, Super Admin, Support, and Accountant roles.
Staff members created under Operations > Team (Super Admin only).
At least one active commission rule (see Step 1). Without rules, a generated statement will be empty — nothing is calculated by default.

How Staff Commissions Work in Collar

Commissions are not accrued live as bookings complete. Nothing exists until someone generates a statement.

When you generate a statement for a date range, Collar looks at every appointment in that range with a status of Confirmed (booking types Slot, Multi-day, and Multi-slot), finds the staff assigned to each one, matches the highest-priority active commission rule, and writes the results into that statement.

Rule matching, highest priority first:

A rule naming both this staff member and this service
A rule naming this staff member, applying to all services
A rule applying to all staff, naming this service
A rule applying to all staff and all services

Only one rule applies per booking — the most specific one wins. Only Active rules are considered, and a booking with no matching rule produces no commission line.

How the amount is calculated:

Percentage: the rule’s percentage of the order total. Note this is the whole order, not just the one service line.
Fixed Amount: the rule’s value multiplied by quantity, where quantity is the number of nights for a multi-day booking and 1 for everything else.

Every staff member assigned to an appointment earns on it. If two groomers are assigned to the same booking, both receive the full calculated amount — Collar does not split it.

Step-by-Step: Setting Up and Processing Commissions

Step 1: Configure Commission Rules

In the left sidebar, click Reporting, then open the Commissions tab.
Click the filter icon in the header (tooltip: Commission Rules) to open the rules screen. There is no separate side tab for it.
Click + to add a rule and fill in:
- Name — e.g. Grooming 40%.
- Type — Percentage or Fixed Amount.
- Value — the percentage or the fixed amount per booking.
- Staff Members (Optional) — leave empty to apply to all staff.
- Products (Optional) — leave empty to apply to all services.
Save. Rules can later be set Inactive to stop them applying without deleting them.

Remember the priority order above when writing rules: a broad “all staff, all services” rule is a safe baseline, and narrower rules override it.

Step 2: Generate a Commission Statement

Go to Reporting > Commissions.
Click the + button (New Statement).
In Generate Commission Statement, enter:
- Statement Name — e.g. March 2026 – Groomers.
- From Date and To Date — your pay period.
- Notes (Optional).
Save. Collar calculates the commissions for that window immediately and adds the statement to the list, showing its name, period, number of staff, creation date, notes, and total.

Step 3: Audit the Statement

Click the statement to open it. The header shows Total Commissions, Staff Members, and Period.
Below that is one row per staff member with their position, booking count, and total.
Click a staff member’s row to see their individual line items: service name, date, client, pet(s), order total, and commission amount.

Step 4: Adjust Commission Amounts

If something needs correcting — a refunded service, an agreed bonus, a split that should have been shared:

Click the ⋯ button on the staff member’s row (or on an individual line item) to open Edit Commission.
The modal shows the calculated total, then every booking with the rule that produced it.
Edit the Order Total and/or the Commission Amount for any booking. The commission amount cannot exceed that booking’s order total.
Click Save Changes.

There is no reason or note field on this screen, so record why an adjustment was made in your own payroll notes or in the statement’s Notes field.

Step 5: Export for Payroll

On the statement, click Export.
Choose how you want it:
- Combined — a single CSV covering every staff member.
- Separate — a zip containing one CSV per staff member, useful for attaching to individual payslips.
The file is named after the statement and its period, and includes staff name, service, owner name, pet names, and commission amount, with a total.

Exports are CSV only — there is no PDF statement. Collar also does not pay commissions: the export feeds your payroll system, and payment happens there.

Handling Cancellations and Refunded Bookings

A statement is a snapshot taken at the moment you generate it. It does not update afterwards.

Cancelled before you generate: the booking is no longer Confirmed, so it never enters the statement.
Cancelled or refunded after you generate: nothing recalculates, and there is no automatic clawback. Either edit that line down to zero in Edit Commission, or delete the statement and generate it again.

The practical rule: generate the statement after the pay period has closed and refunds have settled.

Important Notes, Tips & Warnings

Warning: Confirmed, not Completed. Commission calculation keys off appointments with a Confirmed status. A booking that was confirmed but never attended will still generate commission unless its status was changed. Reconcile no-shows before generating.
Warning: percentage rules use the whole order total. If a client’s order contains several items, a percentage rule pays on the full order value, not just the service the staff member delivered.
Warning: statements have no approval workflow. There is no “Approved” or “Paid” status — the only option on a statement is Delete. Track payment status in payroll, and keep the exported CSV as your record.
Warning: regenerating creates a second statement. Collar won’t stop you from generating overlapping statements for the same period. Delete the superseded one so nobody pays twice.
Note: tips are not part of commissions. Collar’s commission system has no gratuity handling or tips column.
Note: check tax treatment against a real booking. Commission is calculated on the order total as stored, so if your prices are tax-inclusive, commission is calculated on the tax-inclusive figure. Verify with one booking before rolling this out.
Tip: memberships and product orders are excluded. Only Slot, Multi-day, and Multi-slot service bookings are considered.

Troubleshooting

Issue: A booking isn’t showing on a staff member’s statement. Resolution: Check, in order: (1) the appointment status was Confirmed when the statement was generated; (2) its date falls inside the statement period; (3) the staff member is assigned to that appointment; (4) an Active rule covers that staff member and service; (5) it’s a Slot, Multi-day, or Multi-slot booking. Fix the cause, then delete and regenerate the statement.

Issue: The commission percentage is wrong. Resolution: A more specific rule is winning. A rule naming both the staff member and the service beats one naming only the staff member, which beats a service-wide rule, which beats an all-staff/all-services rule. Review your rules for an overlap, and set unwanted ones to Inactive.

Issue: A fixed-amount commission looks multiplied. Resolution: That’s expected on multi-day bookings — a fixed rule pays per night. Adjust the line in Edit Commission if that isn’t your policy.

Issue: Two staff members were both paid in full for the same booking. Resolution: By design — every assigned staff member earns the calculated amount. To split it, edit each line in Edit Commission.

Issue: A statement is empty. Resolution: Almost always no active commission rules, or no Confirmed bookings with assigned staff in that date range.