In this article you will learn:
- How to add a Partner in podium as a Business Payee (referral fees go to the Business)
- Partner codes showing in thru
- Permission to email customer documents partners
For information on how to create a new individual partner in podium - see article - How to create a new partner in podium (Individual).
For information of what the partner will receive - see article - Partners in podium.
- Once in podium, click 'Partners +' next to the search field.
- Next, Click New Partner.
- A new tab will open 'New Partner'. Select from Partner Grouping dropdown.
You will now be asked to complete the following sections:
Partner
- Partner Name
- Enter the name of the partner you would like to add. In the next section you will be prompted to enter the primary contacts information.
- Pay Referral Fees? *
- If you will be paying referral fees to the referral partner (as a business) select Yes and additional sections will appear. If you will NOT be paying a referral fee select NO.
- Partner Website
- Enter the website for the partner here, if required.
*Referral Fees (this field will only appear if you answered yes to pay referral fees)
- Payee Type? Choose Business
Are you paying the referral fee to the Business then the Business or Primary Contacts payment bank information will be required. Fees will be paid to this account only.
If business is chosen then all payments are made to the business (who must disburse to individuals, if they are added to the Contacts). It is worth noting that each contact will receive an email advising them that referral fees are owed to them.
- Compliance Type? RECA (Real Estate Council of Alberta) or None. Please see more details on RECA compliance, at the bottom of this article.
If referral fees payable to the Business:
* Payment Information - (section will only appear if answered Yes to pay referral fees)
- Complete the bank account information for who will receive the fee.
Primary Contact Information
Fill the information fields for who is the Primary Contact (perhaps the business owner or company director).
Example:
The Primary Contact that is selected for the partner should be considered whilst you are setting up the profile as it does come with some rules and restrictions should you need to alter them in the future. Think of that contact as being the individual who is the administrator of that relationship and receives notifications of all sales and, depending on the set up, paid referral fees.
Example:
Partner profile set up as a business profile with Chris Test as the main Contact.
Referral fees are paid.
Being set up as a business profile means that the business gets the the referral fees, so the business account or main contacts bank account is used in the set up.
There is one code used for that company, and its 'attached' to the main contact Chris.
If Chris Test then leaves that company and a new contact needs to be added, you will need to create a NEW podium partner profile, using a new contact and a new code or add them to the profile. This is an intended restriction put into the platform to ensure that main contacts cannot 'accidentally' be changed as that code and payments are all attached to the main contact.
To ensure that users are aware, if you try to change the status of the main contact to inactive, using the Active slider, shown here:
You will get a warning to confirm that if you change that contact to inactive, the code used by customers will also be inactive, like here:
Notification Emails
Answer these fields based on whether you would like to send Notification Emails to whomever you are setting up as a referral partner. These will provide notifications for various actions that might occur for the customer. The options will include:
No = No they wont receive a notification.
Yes w Dec = Yes a notification will send and they will receive a copy of the dec (document provided is the proof of insurance)
Yes w/o Dec = Yes but they will NOT receive a copy of the with dec.
The actions:
- Cancellations
- Changes
- New Policies
- Renewals
- Monthly Activities - see more information on this at the bottom of this article.
- Certificate of Insurance
This will dictate what documents are emailed to this contact.
Example: If Cancellations is marked as 'yes' whenever a code is used under this partner for a policy, and that policy is cancelled, a copy of the cancellation will be emailed to the email address on file for the partner to notify them of the policy cancellation.
- Once all these fields are completed, Click Add.
- A new profile will be created for this referral partner.
The partner profile should like something like this: (may vary depending on if you are paying referral fees or not).
This section allows you to add Contacts to the Business profile.
Select New Contact and a form will open for completion. There are 3 sections:
- Contact information
- Referral Fees
- Notification Emails
Contact Information - Complete the contact information for that contact.
Referral Fees - As this is a Business profile, the Payee type stays as the Business and cannot be amended.
Notification emails - As per the Primary Profile, you can set up notifications for this contact. This means that if this contact has their specified Code used in thru/bond, they will get the notification of the New Policies, Renewal or whatever is selected.
Once you have set up and selected Add, your new referral partner will receive an email to set up their own account. See article Partners in podium.
Every single contact will need to be completed and their account details if paying individuals.
All contacts will get that email with the referral fees.
When setting up the notifications for the partners, you (or they) may have requested certain documents are sent to the partner, for a New Business policy for example.
When the code is used in thru, there is a statement added to the code question which the customer has to agree to for the document to send (if applicable). Shown here:
If the referral partner needs to comply with RECA, then you would need to answer Yes here. If a referral code is used and it is linked to a referral partner who this answer is Yes for, then this statement appears in thru, for the customer to understand and acknowledge discounts (if applicable) and referral fees apply:
The referral partner whos referral code is used by the customer, will also receive emails when a sale is made which include the Insurance Referral Fee Consent form, which look like this:
And the content of the attachment above titled 'Insurance Referral Fee Consent', looks like this:
When Yes is selected, a report called Partner Policy Activity Report is sent out on the 1st of every month.
It is received by each active contact on the account with a an active referral code.
Here is an example of what this looks like:
When you are first creating the partner profile in podium, one of the initial profile questions is: Pay Referral Fees?
How you answer this question will impact the verbiage that the customer sees in thru, so that it only mentions possible payments of referral fees and discounts if set up that way.
Here are the two examples:
- If you use a partner that has referral fees under the main profile contact – this is the verbiage in thru when the code is entered:
- If you set up a partner profile to NOT pay referral fees, this is the verbiage in thru: