Understand the SOI & PRF Documents
The Payment Request Form (PRF) and Statement of Invoices (SOI) documents are how impact.com bills you for obligations (like commissions) due to your partners.
PRF & SOI overview
The PRF is a request document, not an invoice, which means you're pre-funding your funding account on a requested date before your financial obligations are finalized. The PRF allows you to pre-fund your funding account with the expected obligation costs for the month. This gives partners quicker access to commissions once actions lock, but requires you to proactively monitor and reconcile your account against a forecast each month.
The SOI is a summary of invoices, which means you're settling obligations on a set due date based on a finalized amount. This results in a less flexible commissioning schedule, but is the most straightforward funding method.
How it works
Brand accounts on impact.com are billed for partner commissions through one of two methods:
Payment Request Form (PRF) / Pro Forma Invoice (PFI) - You'll receive an estimated bill for your obligations based on the Payment Request Form (PRF). This is a forecasting document that estimates upcoming bills within the next 30 days, which you can deposit into your account before commissions are due. This document is not an invoice; it's a forecast of upcoming bills for your account.
You'll receive a billing statement for your obligations via the Statement of Invoices (SOI) document. This is a finalized document that adds up all of the commissions and services you're being billed for within a given time frame—usually 30 days, but can depend on your account's custom GAAP month configuration.
Note: You should only receive one (1) of these documents to avoid confusion with your finance team, and to build a billing schedule that works best for you.
Pre-funding with a PRF
The PRF coincides with a pre-funding strategy—you’ll deposit funds into your funding account ahead of time, based on the projected cost of your obligations. A pre-funding strategy offers the best cash flow for your account, enabling a quicker commissioning structure—many partners prefer to receive their commissions as soon as possible. This requires proactively monitoring and reconciling your account each month, since you're depositing against a forecast rather than a finalized amount.
Each month, the PRF/PFI document is generated and sent to your account's assigned financial contact. This document forecasts the expected cost of your obligations within the next 30 days.
You’ll deposit funds ahead of when they’re due, ensuring your obligations don’t become overdue.
An additional safety margin can be included in PRF to ensure you have the additional cash flow for incidentals (like ad hoc funds transfer to partners).
Partners receive their commissions promptly.
Example: Your program has pending actions that total $1,000. Your payout scheduling determines that these will be due on the last day of the month.
On the first of the month, a PRF is generated and sent to you that forecasts $1,000 will be due within 30 days. On Feb 2, you deposit $1,050 (full amount plus a 5% safety margin) into the account. At the end of the month, partners with commissions due will receive them instantly, with no risk of them becoming overdue.
Invoicing with a SOI
The SOI coincides with an invoicing strategy—all of your obligations for a given billing period are tallied up in the SOI, and you’ll deposit funds into your account so they’re settled by the due date specified. Because you're funding against a finalized, invoiced amount rather than a forecast, this is the simpler of the two strategies to reconcile—there's no safety margin to estimate and no reconciliation step.
Individual invoices are generated every month for each partner that has locked actions and/or received a funds transfer within the prior month.
All invoices are aggregated into the SOI, which is typically generated and sent on the 2nd of each month, but can depend on your account’s custom GAAP month configuration.
On the due date specified in the SOI, you’ll deposit the full amount into your funding account.
Partners will receive their commissions on the scheduled payout date—unless your account has insufficient funds, which will mark them as overdue.
Example: Your program has pending actions totaling $1,000, which locked at the end of the previous month. Under the default payment schedule, actions are cleared 20 days after the end of the month they lock-- so payment is due on the 21st. On the 2nd of the month, an SOI is generated and sent to you indicating that $1,000 in commissions locked in the previous month. You deposit $1,000 ahead of the due date (the 21st), since deposits can take a few business days to process. Partners will receive their commission on the payout scheduling date.
If you are overdue
If you are overdue on any partner or impact.com fees (depending on your statement settings), even from previous statements, the total of all overdue amounts on all statements is indicated on the SOI document below the total of the current month’s costs.
Note: Settling via an SOI requires a longer time period between when an action locks and when the partner receives their commission, as you’ll need this time to deposit funds into your account — make sure to consider the average amount of time it takes for you to process an invoice within your organization when setting up your commission structuring.
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