Workaround: Agent Advance Deduction and Commission Paid from Different Accounts

Workaround: Agent Advance Deduction and Commission Paid from Different Accounts

Workaround and Why: 

An Agent Advance is typically set up as a commission deduction. The brokerage collects the advance repayment from the agent’s commission and pays the amount back to the loan company on the agent’s behalf. This allows Loft47 to continue tracking the agent’s full commission and production while recording the advance repayment as a deduction.

Normally, both the Agent Advance repayment and the agent’s commission payout would come from the same bank account.

However, some brokerages have a compliance requirement to pay the Agent Advance from the Trust account, while the agent’s remaining commission is paid from the Commission account. Because the deduction is associated with the commission payout, using different accounts can cause Loft to create Income Earned and Income Paid entries when the Trust account does not have the funds to cover the commission deduction.

The following workaround allows you to keep the transactions aligned between Trust and Commission.

Example Scenario: 

Agent Rebecca’s commission is $3,000 + GST = $3,150, and she has a $2,000 Agent Advance that needs to be repaid to RealServe Financial Inc.

The $2,000 is deducted from Rebecca’s commission and paid back to RealServe by the brokerage on her behalf.

Steps

  1. Add a Paid at the Table deduction for the RealServe advance under Brokerage > Deduction Template.

  2. Apply Rebecca’s full entitled commission to the deal as usual.

  3. Apply RealServe in Deal > People as Other Profile,
    then In     in Deal > Deductions page add the Agent Advance – Paid at the Table deduction for $2,000.

  4. In the allocation, add the actual $2,000 RealServe advance as Other Income and select RealServe as the payee.

  5. The Paid at the Table deduction reduces the expected deposit, while the Other Income increases the expected deposit by the same amount. This keeps the expected deposit aligned with the actual funds being deposited into Trust.

  6. Deposit the expected amount into the Trust account — in this example, $3,150.

  7. Pay out the Other Income from Trust to RealServe. 

  8. Transfer the remaining commission from Trust to Commission, then pay Rebecca from the Commission account.

Result:

This workaround keeps the Trust and Commission transactions aligned, while Loft still correctly captures Rebecca’s full commission/production and the $2,000 Agent Advance deduction. It also allows the brokerage to pay RealServe from the Trust account as required by its compliance process, with the account flows recorded correctly and reconciling as expected.