Review, approvals and disputes
Who this is for: admins who approve manager adjustments and handle disputes, and managers who submit them. Read Run your first payout first if you haven't run a payout yet.
Review in the admin navigation is where anything that needs a decision before it affects pay collects: adjustments submitted by managers and, when disputes are on, disputes about published payouts. The badge on Review counts pending adjustments plus active disputes.
The Review page
The page opens with four figures: Pending Adjustments, Pending Amount, Active Disputes (only when disputes are on) and Approved Adjustments. Below them are two tabs, Adjustments and Disputes.
The Adjustments tab lists your organization's recent adjustments, including the ones admins added directly, with these filters: Pending Review, All, Approved and Rejected / Expired. Each row shows the rep, who submitted it, type, amount, reason, period, submitted date and status.
Adjustment approvals
Where adjustments come from
| Created by | Arrives as |
|---|---|
| An admin (Payouts → Adjust, the payout detail page, or Bulk Upload) | Approved at once |
| A manager (their dashboard → Adjustments tab) | Pending. It does nothing until an admin approves it. |
| An admin resolving a dispute with a correction amount | Approved at once, skipping this queue |
How a manager submits one
- On the manager dashboard, pick the month with the month picker, then open the Adjustments tab.
- Under Submit Adjustment, choose the Team Member, the Adjustment Type (Revenue Adjustment or Fixed Bonus, or a Volume Adjustment for a rep on a unit plan) and the Amount. Target Period is the month selected on the dashboard.
- Enter a Reason of at least 5 characters (up to 500) and submit.
The confirmation reads "Adjustment submitted for admin review". A Fixed Bonus is paid in the rep's payout currency; a Revenue Adjustment counts in their quota currency. Under Submitted Adjustments the manager sees each item's status and any Admin Note, with the reminder "Pending adjustments expire after 14 days."
A manager can't submit for a month that is already published: "Cannot submit adjustment for Mar 2026 — a published payout already exists for this period."
Approving and rejecting
- Approve takes one click and no comment. "Adjustment approved".
- Reject opens Reject Adjustment, which requires a reason ("Reason for rejection..."). The dialog notes "The manager will see this comment." "Adjustment rejected".
- To review several at once, tick them (or tick the header box) and use Approve All or Reject All. Both act on the ticked rows. The limit is 200 per batch; when it binds you see "200 selected of 340 — 200 is the maximum per batch". Reject All asks for one reason for all of them.
The reviewing admin and time are recorded on the adjustment.
Approval is refused when the adjustment could never be paid:
| Message | Meaning |
|---|---|
| "Cannot approve - published payout exists for Mar 2026, so an approved adjustment would never be paid. Reject this adjustment and post it as a correction to the current open period instead." | The month was published while the item waited. |
| "Cannot approve - the rep has no active position in Mar 2026, so no payout will ever include this adjustment. Reject it and pay it outside the payout run." | No position covers the month. |
| "Cannot approve - a manager above this rep has already published Mar 2026, so this revenue adjustment would never reach their pay. Reject it and post it into an open month instead." | Revenue items also credit managers, whose month is closed. |
For the first case, reject the item and post the amount as a correction (see Corrections and clawbacks).
After you approve
An approved adjustment is included the next time the month is generated. If the month already has a draft, that draft now shows Out of date, and publishing holds it until you regenerate it on the Payouts page: tick the rep and click Regenerate Selected, or use Regenerate Drafts for the whole month.
Statuses
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | Waiting for an admin. Not included in any calculation. |
| Approved | Included from the next generation. |
| Rejected | Never included. The admin's reason is shown to the manager. |
| Expired | Closed automatically after 14 days without review. |
The 14-day expiry
A daily job expires every adjustment still Pending 14 days after it was submitted, with the note "Auto-expired after 14 days without review". The Review page header links here for that reason.
- Expiry is one-way. Only pending adjustments can be reviewed, so an expired one can't be approved. If it was legitimate, the manager submits it again.
- Organizations whose billing is paused or suspended are skipped, so items don't expire while an admin can't act on them.
Emails
- Every manager submission emails your admins: "Adjustment pending review — [rep] ([type])", with a Review Adjustments button.
- If Adjustment Email Notifications is on (Settings → Features; off by default), the rep and the submitting manager get "Adjustment Approved — March 2026" or "Adjustment Rejected — March 2026", with the admin's comment when there is one. People can turn these off in their own settings.
Manager review of team drafts
Before payouts are published, a manager can sign off on their team's drafts: manager dashboard → Team Payouts → Drafts Awaiting Your Review → Mark reviewed ("Draft marked as reviewed").
The sign-off is for information. The admin's Publish dialog counts it ("3 of 8 drafts manager-reviewed.") and the payouts table shows who signed off and when, but it never blocks publishing. Regenerating or deleting a draft clears it.
Disputes
A dispute is a rep saying a published payout is wrong. Admins review it and either resolve it (often with a correction) or reject it.
Turning disputes on and setting the window
- Go to Settings → Features and switch on Disputes ("Allow reps to flag payout discrepancies…"). They are off by default.
- Under it, set the Dispute window in days (a whole number from 1 to 365; 60 by default) and click Save. The confirmation reads "Reps can now dispute a payout for 60 days after its period starts (a quarterly payout: after its last month starts)."
The window counts from the start of the period, not from the publish date. With 60 days, a March payout can be disputed until April 30. For a quarterly payout it counts from the first day of the quarter's last month. Shortening the window closes it at once on older payouts.
While disputes are off, the Disputes tab, the rep's Dispute This Payout button and the manager's Team Disputes tab are hidden, and dispute actions are refused with "Disputes are disabled for this organization". Existing disputes are kept.
Rules for filing
| Rule | What the app says |
|---|---|
| Published payouts only | "Only published payouts can be disputed" |
| Inside the window | After it, the button is gone and the rep sees "The 60-day window to dispute this statement closed on Apr 30, 2026. Contact your comp admin if something still looks wrong." |
| One active dispute per payout | "An active dispute already exists for this payout" |
| A reason of 10 to 1,000 characters | "Reason must be at least 10 characters" |
A dispute is about a whole payout. To question one deal, the rep names it in the reason.
Filing a dispute
- Rep (or a manager on their own pay): open the published payout under Payouts, click Dispute This Payout, write the Reason for Dispute and click Submit Dispute. "Dispute submitted successfully".
- Manager for a direct report: Team Disputes tab → File Dispute on Behalf of Rep, choose the Team Member and Payout, enter the Reason, then Submit Dispute. The rep must have reported to that manager during the payout period.
Filing emails your admins: "Dispute filed by [rep] — [period]", with a Review Disputes button.
The lifecycle
A dispute moves from Open to In Review (optional) to Resolved or Rejected.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Open | Filed, not picked up yet. |
| In Review | An admin has taken it on. The audit log records it as IN_REVIEW. Optional: you can resolve or reject straight from Open. |
| Resolved | Upheld, with or without a correction. |
| Rejected | Not upheld. The comment explains why. |
The Disputes tab filters are Active (Open and In Review), All and Resolved (Resolved and Rejected).
Working a dispute
Click Review on the dispute to open Dispute Details:
- Optionally click Mark as In Review ("Dispute marked as In Review").
- Write a Resolution Comment (required, up to 1,000 characters). The rep sees it.
- To pay something, choose the Correction type (Fixed Bonus, added directly to the payout, or Revenue Adjustment, which goes through the commission calculation) and enter the Correction amount (optional).
- Check Posts to statement, the month the correction lands in. The sheet explains: "This posts as a correction on the [Month] statement (or the next open one if that month is already closed). The disputed period ([Month]) is already paid and stays unchanged."
- Click Resolve or Reject. Both need the comment.
How the correction is paid:
- It is created already approved and skips the approval queue.
- A Fixed Bonus is paid in the currency the disputed payout was paid in, even if the rep's payout currency has changed since. A Revenue Adjustment uses the rep's quota currency.
- If you pick a month that is already published: "Cannot book adjustment in a period with a published payout. Please select an open period."
- If the landing month already has a draft, regenerate it before publishing (tick the rep and use Regenerate Selected).
- The disputed payout itself never changes. The correction appears in its ledger as a Dispute entry.
The person who filed the dispute gets an email, "Your dispute for March 2026 has been resolved" (or "…has been reviewed" when rejected), with your comment and any amount. The filer and the rep whose payout it is both get an in-app notification.
Who filed it
When someone other than the payee filed a dispute, the Review page says who:
| Line | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Filed by [manager's name] | The manager filed it from their dashboard. |
| Filed by a manager | Filed from a manager dashboard, but the filer isn't on record (older disputes, or the manager's account was deleted). |
| Filed by Earnest support on [payee's] behalf | Earnest support filed it while helping the payee in their account. |
| Filed by Earnest support on a manager's behalf | Earnest support filed it from a manager's dashboard. |
Adjustments work the same way: one that Earnest support submitted from a manager's dashboard reads Submitted by Earnest support on [manager's] behalf.
FAQ
A manager says their adjustment never appeared on the payout. Check its status on Review. Pending items are not counted, items older than 14 days expire, and an approved item only appears once the month's draft is regenerated.
Can I approve with a comment? No. Approve takes no comment. Reject always needs one.
Why can't I approve an expired adjustment? Expiry is one-way so an old item can't slip into a live payout months later. Ask the manager to submit it again for an open month.
Can a rep dispute a single deal? Disputes are filed against a payout. The rep names the deal in the reason.
Does acknowledging a statement waive the right to dispute? No. Acknowledging only records that the rep saw it.
Can an admin correct something outside the dispute window? Yes. The window limits reps filing disputes, not admin corrections.
What happens to open disputes if we turn disputes off? They are kept but hidden, and nothing can be done with them until you turn the feature back on.