The short answer
When more than one associate works on a sale, the splits that hold up best share the credit between the person who opened the relationship and the person who closed it — for example 40% each, with the remaining 20% shared by anyone who helped in between, which comes out at 50/50 when only two people were involved.
The rules around the split matter more than the percentages: credit the sale, never activity; work it out from things your system already records, such as who raised the quote and who held the appointment; freeze the split when the sale lands; reduce it when the sale is refunded; and let a manager overrule it only with a written reason that stays on the record.
In a shop where every sale happens in one visit, commission is easy: whoever served the customer gets it. In a showroom, a single sale can involve the designer who did the home visit, the associate who showed the fabrics on a Saturday, the colleague who answered the phone on Tuesday, and the manager who took the deposit. Then the customer buys the whole thing on their phone at midnight. Somebody has to decide who earned it, and if you haven't decided in advance, you'll decide in an argument.
Why it matters more in a showroom
- Sales take weeks, so the same customer is often served by different people on different days.
- Customers move between showrooms and between the showroom and the website.
- Online closes erase credit. If a sale that closes on the website counts for nobody on the floor, associates learn to keep customers away from the website.
- Disputes are corrosive. One contested sale can sour a team for months, and "who was first" is almost impossible to settle from memory.
Five common ways to split credit
| Model | How it works | Where it goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Closer takes all | Whoever rings up the sale gets all of it | Rewards being on shift on the day. Punishes the groundwork, and invites customer-snatching at the till. |
| "My customer" | The first person to serve a customer owns them for a period | Endless disputes about who was first. Customers get held back when their "owner" is off. |
| Split between everyone who touched it | Credit is shared evenly by everyone who had any contact | Rewards touching, not selling. People log trivial contact to get onto sales. |
| Team pool | Commission goes into a store pot shared by the team | Removes disputes and individual incentive together. Strong performers can feel carried. |
| Opener and closer | Fixed shares for whoever opened and closed the sale, with a smaller share for anyone in between | Needs clear definitions of opening and closing, and a system that records them. |
Most showroom businesses end up at the last one, because it matches how the sale actually happens: finding the customer and closing them are the two hard parts, and help in the middle is real but smaller. The weakness is only definitional, and a good system fixes that by deciding opener and closer from records rather than recollection.
A worked example
A £4,200 walnut dresser. Priya raises the quote on 3 June. Tom holds the customer's showroom appointment on 18 June. Priya follows up on 2 July, and the customer pays that evening on the website.
| Act | Who | Role | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raised the quote, 3 June | Priya | Opener | 40% |
| Held the appointment, 18 June | Tom | In between | 20% |
| Followed up, 2 July | Priya | Closer | 40% |
| Priya 80%, Tom 20% | 100% | ||
Three things are worth noticing. The website close didn't cost anyone their credit. Priya's two acts earn her both end shares, so doing the whole sale yourself earns the whole sale. And if the customer later returns part of the order — say £700 comes back — the shares stay the same and follow the money down: Priya's credit becomes 80% of £3,500, Tom's 20%.
The rules that keep a split fair
Whatever percentages you choose, these rules decide whether your team trusts them:
- Credit the sale, never activity. Attach credit to activity and you'll get activity. Writing notes, logging calls and raising tasks shouldn't earn anything; only the sale should.
- Count acts, not repetitions. Revising the same quote five times is one act. Otherwise whoever edits most wins.
- Use records, not memory. Decide who opened and closed from things your system already records — who raised the quote, who held the appointment, who closed the follow-up — rather than from who remembers being there.
- Credit whoever did it, not whoever the work was assigned to. If a colleague covers your follow-up while you're on holiday and it closes, the credit is theirs.
- Freeze the split when the sale lands. Records change afterwards — a quote is tidied away, an appointment is marked as a no-show, somebody leaves — and nobody's credit should move because a colleague cleaned up.
- Follow refunds down. Credit should be on what the business actually kept. If part of an order is refunded and nobody has recorded how much yet, hold that sale back until they have, rather than paying on the full amount.
- Overrule on the record. A manager should be able to change a split, because edge cases exist. But the change needs a named person and a written reason, and the original calculation should stay visible beside it.
- A sale nobody touched pays nobody. Don't hand walk-in or web-only sales to whoever is nearest. It's honest, and it keeps the rest of the system believable.
What about sales that close online after a showroom visit?
Treat them exactly like sales that close in the showroom. If the customer's record shows an associate raised their quote or held their appointment, that associate is credited when the order lands, wherever it lands. This single rule does more for the relationship between your showroom team and your website than any number of meetings about channel conflict: once the floor gets credit for online closes, it starts sending customers to the website instead of away from it.
Credit is the system's job; pay is payroll's
It helps to separate two questions. Who earned what share of which sale is a question about what happened, and your customer system is best placed to answer it from its records. What that's worth in pay — rates, thresholds, bonuses, tax — is a question for your payroll. The cleanest arrangement is a system that produces credited sales per person, per period and per currency, and a payroll that applies your rates to it.
Where Stitchwork fits
Stitchwork credits each sale to the people who earned it, using one rule you can say in a sentence: the opener takes 40%, the closer takes 40%, and anyone in between shares the rest. It works that out from the quotes, appointments and follow-ups your team already records in Stitchwork. Notes earn nothing, raising a follow-up earns nothing — only closing one does — and revising the same quote five times still counts once.
The split is frozen when the sale lands, with the trail it was worked out from. A refund reduces every share automatically, and a part-refund with no recorded amount is held out of the run and listed for someone to settle rather than paid at gross. An owner or admin can overrule a split, with a reason that stays on the record beside what was originally calculated. The run shows credited sales per person, per currency, for any period.
What it doesn't do is calculate pay. Stitchwork holds no commission rates and pays nobody; it gives your payroll the credited figures. And it only counts what it witnessed — a phone call it never saw earns nothing. See how sales credit works, or read the follow-ups and sales credit documentation.
Questions people ask
What's a fair commission split between two salespeople?
When one opened the sale and the other closed it, an even split is the most common and easiest to defend. With more people involved, fixed shares for opener and closer plus a smaller shared portion for anyone in between keeps the split predictable. Agree the rule before the first contested sale, not during it.
Should the closer get more?
Many businesses have historically paid the closer everything, but it rewards being present on the day over doing the groundwork. In considered-purchase retail, where the opening conversation often decides the sale, equal shares for opener and closer tend to produce better behaviour on both sides.
What happens to commission when a sale is refunded?
Credit should follow what the business actually kept. If a sale is partly refunded, each person's share applies to the net amount. If a refund is known about but not yet recorded, it's safer to hold that sale back than to pay on the full amount and claw it back later.
How do you stop associates arguing about commission?
You won't stop every argument, but you can give it somewhere to be settled. Use a rule people can say in one sentence, work it out from records rather than memory, freeze it when the sale lands, and let a manager overrule it only with a reason that everyone can see.
Who gets credit if the customer buys online after visiting the showroom?
The associates who served them, exactly as if the sale had closed in the showroom. Crediting online closes to the floor is what stops the showroom team steering customers away from your website.
Should anyone get commission on sales nobody worked on?
No. Web-only and walk-in sales with no recorded involvement shouldn't be handed to whoever is nearest. Paying for work that didn't happen undermines trust in the credit for work that did.