Troubleshooting earnings in Partner Center Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Global and local campaigns (or anything referred to as Direct Pay model), or any lump sum adjustments usually don't contain reconciliation details like customer name, subscription ID, or invoice number.

If the lever measures growth (For example, revenue growth for a time duration for the enrolled partner), then it's likely that you'll find customer names along with other transactional details only in the Earnings-Growth report and not in the Earnings-Default report.

For all other levers, if you see customer names for rest of the earning lines for the same engagement or lever, there's a few possibilities:

• If reconciliation attributes like customer ID, customer name, subscription ID, or invoice number are missing for only one or two earnings lines, and only in earning details like lever or earning amount, then it most likely is a manual adjustment. Review the reason code attribute in Earnings-Default on why it was performed. Usually these adjustments can't be attributed to a single customer.

• If all recently added earning lines (for example, "refer latest calc date") are missing other reconciliation details (and not just customer name) for the engagement/lever, then it's a data latency issue and will most likely be available in 3-5 days.

• If other reconciliation attributes are available and only customer ID and customer name is missing, most likely it's a brand new subscription and hasn't gone through the invoice process yet. For new subscriptions, customer names for customer ID type =’TPID’ are available only after 45-60 days.

Adjustments usually don't have references to a single transaction or usage instance; they're performed at a later stage. Adjustments usually have bare minimum details, for example: enrolled partner information, program/lever and earning amount and reason code. You can understand the reason for an adjustment by referencing the reasonCode column in the download. The following table lists reason codes for adjustments and their descriptions.

If you never received a single earning yet for a program, first make sure you're showing as Enrolled in the program on the Incentives - Overview page for the specific partner enrollment ID. Next, make sure you've met partner eligibility criteria. To learn more, see the Global program guides. In general, you'll only receive earnings once you've enrolled and meet partner eligibility criteria.

For all programs other than Microsoft Commerce Incentives:

If you're enrolled and met partner eligibility criteria, earnings might not be available for one of the following reasons:

• Customer eligibility hasn't been met.

• Transaction eligibility hasn't been met. (For example, the minimum revenue threshold hasn't been met, or the product isn't eligible for that lever.)

• There's no transaction or consumption for the time period.

For Microsoft commerce incentives:

If you're enrolled, you can check if you're eligible for an engagement on the Incentives - Engagements page - Eligibility section. If you're showing as ineligible, review the details for criteria not met.

In some cases, the ineligibility details aren't outlined. In these cases, refer to the Incentives - Engagements summary section to review the complete list of partner eligibility criteria or refer to the Microsoft commerce incentives guide.

If you're eligible for the engagement, but not yet earning for a lever, it might be due to one of the following reasons:

• Customer eligibility hasn't been met.

• Transaction eligibility hasn't been met. (For example, the minimum revenue threshold hasn't been met, or the product isn't eligible for that lever.)

• There's no transaction or consumption for the time period.

Program/engagement/lever refreshes happen every year or at a set cadence for all incentive programs. Make sure the program, engagement, or lever you're concerned about is still active and review the program rules. Refer to the summary of policy changes section for Microsoft commerce incentives.

If the program or engagement policies changed, or if new policies are introduced, make sure you're showing as enrolled in the main program and that you're listed as eligible against the engagements. Make sure you understand the cadence of when the earnings will first be generated for the program. It's possible that the first earning publish for the new program year might happen on a later date than the usual cadence.

Other possibilities include:

• Your relationship with the customer changed, making you ineligible for incentives

• Transaction/consumption or usage eligibility isn't being met.

Make sure you're enrolled and that you're eligible for participating in the engagement. To troubleshoot and understand why specific customers or subscriptions are ineligible, heck the Revenue page. Review the list of ineligible reason codes.

In the Revenue and Usage summary view, you can see the total distinct revenue per customer or distinct usage per customer. Apply solution area/engagement name filters to narrow down and understand the total amount used to compute incentives compared with the total that became ineligible. Because ineligible reporting is limited to the list of ineligible reason codes that we currently support, it's possible other transactional rules failed and that revenue doesn't show up anywhere on the Revenue page.

Outside of the manual adjustment, which is explained here, negative earnings could be generated in the following scenarios:

• A return or wipe scenario could initiate a negation in the commerce transaction, which results in a corresponding negative earning. These kinds of earnings have all the reconciliation details like customer ID, order ID, or invoice number.

  transactionId	earningId	earningDate	transactionAmountUSD	earningAmountUSD	lever	earningType	calcDate
  Trans-123	Earn-123	7-Aug-2023	-386	-7	Core Modern Work & Security billed revenue - Direct Partner	Rebate	14-Sep-2023
  Trans-123	Earn-456	7-Aug-2023	-386	-10	Core Modern Work & Security billed revenue - Direct Partner	co-op	14-Sep-2023

• Based on the restatement policy defined for each incentive program, the earnings for a given program could be updated if there are any changes or corrections to the data points that were used to compute the earning. Example: Microsoft commerce incentives overall could restate earnings for rolling 12 months with exceptions. These kinds of earnings have all the reconciliation details like customer ID, order ID, or invoice number.

  • Changes could be financially impacting where the transactionAmountUSD published ends up changing within the restatement policy period. Example: In August 2023, a transaction was recorded to be $500 but then in October 2023 it was adjusted (due to meter corrections) to actually be just $300.

    transactionId	earningId	earningDate	transactionAmountUSD	earningAmountUSD	lever	earningType	calcDate
    Trans-123	Earn-123	7-Aug-2023	500	5	Core Modern Work & Security billed revenue - Direct Partner	Rebate	14-Sep-2023
    Trans-123	Earn-456	7-Aug-2023	-500	-5	Core Modern Work & Security billed revenue - Direct Partner	Rebate	14-Oct-2023
    Trans-123	Earn-789	7-Aug-2023	300	3	Core Modern Work & Security billed revenue - Direct Partner	Rebate	14-Oct-2023

  • Changes could be non-financially impacting where the transactionAmountUSD published ends up being the same with just some negligible updates to the associated attributes.

    transactionId	earningId	earningDate	transactionAmountUSD	earningAmountUSD	lever	earningType	calcDate
    Trans-123	Earn-123	7-Aug-2023	500	5	Core Modern Work & Security billed revenue - Direct Partner	Rebate	14-Sep-2023
    Trans-123	Earn-456	7-Aug-2023	-500	-5	Core Modern Work & Security billed revenue - Direct Partner	Rebate	14-Oct-2023
    Trans-123	Earn-789	7-Aug-2023	500	5	Core Modern Work & Security billed revenue - Direct Partner	Rebate	14-Oct-2023

  • If earning was generated and reversed resulting in a net 0, it means partner, customer, or transaction eligibility was incorrectly applied at first and then reverted.

    transactionId	earningId	earningDate	transactionAmountUSD	earningAmountUSD	lever	earningType	calcDate
    Trans-123	Earn-123	7-Aug-2023	500	5	Core Modern Work & Security billed revenue - Direct Partner	Rebate	14-Sep-2023
    Trans-123	Earn-456	7-Aug-2023	-500	-5	Core Modern Work & Security billed revenue - Direct Partner	Rebate	14-Oct-2023

For Microsoft Commerce Incentives, earnings could be restated for rolling 12 months. An earning generated in October 2023 might be updated if there are any corrections/restatements received from sources up to September 2024. It won’t change beyond that. Example: if an Azure consumption recorded for March 2023 is restated in July 2023 due to some Azure meter corrections, the earnings corresponding to that Azure consumption record, which is originally created in April 2023 is revised in August 2023.

For all other programs, refer to the respective program guides to understand the restatement period.

To learn if you have reached the earnings max cap for an engagement, download the Max Cap Balance file from the Reports page. Learn more about the available attributes available in the article MaxCapBalance.

Max cap is usually defined for an engagement for a period and can be measured using various parameters like customer, subscription etc. Only attributes at which max cap is measured is populated in this file. Refer to the incentives program guide for specific details.

The balanceEarningOpportunityUSD attribute reflects how much more you can earn for an engagement for a defined period. Once it comes down to 0, you can no longer earn for that engagement. To give you transparency into any revenue or usage you continue to drive with the customer once you hit the max cap, Earnings-Default report will show $0 earning for the applicable engagement along with reasonCode attribute set to “Max cap met”.

Choose the custom time filter and set the start date as first day of the program year (example: October 1st 2023) and end date as current date. This narrows the result set to show only earnings generated during this period. Choose the Earnings summary, by programs view. It shows the top 50 earning program/engagement/lever combination. Recommend to apply program name, solution area, partner role filters to narrow the result set.

• To get the distinct earnings and how much was paid (pre-tax amount) per engagement and per lever, refer to the Earnings page, Earnings summary - By program view (apply the program name and engagement name filters if needed) for the chosen time period. Instant download of the view is also available.

• To view the distinct earnings and its corresponding payment status at a more granular level, download the Earnings - Default report. Note: This report won't have all the reconciliation details with the exception of Azure Quarter over quarter for which customer and subscription information has been provided effective September 2023.

• To understand the underlying transactions that contributed to the earning, download Earnings - Growth.

Every incentive engagement could have a different earning calculation cadence and because of this the all-up earning numbers could change frequently.

An easy way to identify the delta earnings is to reference the CalculationDate. Example: If you downloaded the Earnings-Default report on 15th January and see change in Earnings 2 weeks later and download another report on 31st January; you can identify the delta earnings published by identifying all the earnings with CalculationDate between 15th January and 31st January.

Next steps

• For additional help, contact support