Technician commission and payouts

It is the end of the month. A technician looks at the figure and asks: "Why so little?" If the answer lives in a notebook, a calculator and the owner's memory, the conversation ends badly for both sides. ServiceCenterSoft works out each technician's and manager's share from the repairs they actually did, shows the breakdown line by line, records payouts and keeps the balance owed — no separate spreadsheet.

How repair shops pay their technicians

There are three common models. A fixed wage is calm and predictable, but it makes no difference to the technician whether they finished twenty jobs or forty. Commission — a share of every repair — rewards people who work fast and well, and hurts in a quiet month. Base plus commission covers the quiet months and still pays for effort; most shops with more than one bench end up there. How to choose a model and what to calculate the commission from is covered in how to pay repair technicians.

The software takes care of the commission part — the part that is hard to work out by hand. It does not hold a fixed wage: you pay and track the base amount as you do today.

Where "why so little?" comes from

Pay disputes are rarely about the size of the number. They are about the rules: what the percentage was taken from, whether a job handed over on credit counted, whether last week's advance was deducted, who gets paid for a repair two people worked on. When those rules live in the owner's head, they have to be argued again every month. When the software applies the same rules to everyone and shows where every euro came from, there is nothing left to argue about.

Commission on the lines a technician did

Each technician has a rate: 0.40 means 40 %. Rates are kept in a short list with names — "Senior technician", "Trainee" — and assigned on the employee's form. The share is calculated from the repair estimate:

• the base price of the repair goes to the technician assigned to the job;
• each estimate line goes to whoever is set as the person who did it (by default, the job's technician);
• labour counts in full, while a part taken from stock counts only by its markup — nobody earns commission on money that went to the supplier.

An example. A laptop repair: base price €60, connector replacement €45, and a part from stock sold for €120 that cost €80. The technician's commission base is 60 + 45 + 40 = €145; at 0.40 that is €58. If a colleague did a €30 firmware job and is set on that line, those €30 count towards the colleague, at the colleague's rate.

A part typed in by hand, without stock, counts in full — the software does not know what it cost. If technicians should earn only on the markup, run parts through stock.

When a repair counts as earned

Commission is credited for repairs handed back to the customer in the period and paid in full. A device released on credit shows up greyed out in the breakdown, but it is not added to the total. Once the customer pays the rest, the repair counts and the technician's balance goes up. Nobody earns a share of money the shop has not received, and the owner no longer has to remember what has already been paid on.

Front desk share of paid jobs

A manager — the person at the front desk — earns their own rate on the paid total of the jobs they handled. One person can be both: a technician who books devices in on Saturdays has two rates, one per role, and in the payouts both are added up into one figure.

Technicians can see what they were paid for

The technician report for a period shows repairs, amount, how much of it has been paid, the rate and the share. Click a name for the breakdown: every job, every line, its amount, the cost of the part, what counted and what was credited. A technician opens the same report but sees only their own figures — and can answer "why so little?" before asking anyone.

How the reports and branch statistics work in general is on the reports page.

Instalments, advances and the balance owed

The "Payouts" tab shows each person's credited amount for the period, what was paid out in the period and the balance owed at the end of the period. That balance is everything earned so far minus everything paid so far, so a shortfall in September does not disappear — it is still there in October. A payout is recorded on the same screen: who, how much, the date and a note such as "advance" or "for September". The "Pay out" button fills in the balance. An advance larger than what has been earned shows as a negative balance until new repairs cover it.

Below the table is the list of payouts for the period: who, how much, when and who recorded it. Recording or deleting a payout is written to the activity log.

Who sees what, and who pays

There are three separate permissions: "Own report", "Reports on all employees" and "Record staff payouts". A technician sees only their own share and payouts. You can let an administrator see everyone and leave recording payouts to the owner alone. Permissions are ticked per role (branches and permissions).

What the software does not do

• No taxes, social contributions or payslips. Credited and paid amounts export to CSV for your accountant or your own sheet.
• No fixed wage, bonuses or deductions as separate entries — only the share of repairs and the payouts.
• No timesheets or working-hours tracking.
• One rate per role: there is no separate percentage per type of work. There is no rate history either — a new rate recalculates past months too, so change it once you have settled up.

The software runs in the browser, on a phone as well; there is no separate app.

What you get

• Each technician's share for any period — from the lines they did, and only the markup on parts.
• A front desk share of paid jobs.
• A breakdown technicians can open themselves.
• Payouts in instalments and a balance that carries over from month to month.
• CSV export for your accountant.

What it costs

Technician pay is part of the subscription. The price is per workshop, with no extra charge per employee.

Off-the-shelf not enough — your own forms, roles, reports or workflow? We will build a program for you. How it works

See how the share is calculated in the demo: open the technician report and click any name.

Frequently asked questions