Definition
A settlement cycle is how often settlement and profit sharing runs. Monthly settlement and weekly settlement are the common choices. When the cycle arrives, a settlement statement is generated. It includes purchase detail, sales detail, and the profit-sharing amount, and it supports export and a payment record. Unlike payment splitting, which shares profit at the moment of payment, the settlement cycle fits the agent purchasing model.
Common cycles
- Monthly settlement: Summarized by calendar month (from the 1st to the end of each month), the settlement statement is generated and payment made at the beginning of the next month; this is the most commonly used.
- Weekly settlement: Summarized by week, suitable for scenarios with high-frequency transactions and high capital turnover requirements.
- Custom cycle: Custom periods such as biweekly or quarterly, to meet special business needs.
Difference from payment splitting
Payment splitting pays the profit share to the split receiver at the moment the user pays, and it does not need a settlement cycle. Settlement and profit sharing totals agent-price procurement, sales attribution, and similar data on a cycle, generates a settlement statement, and then pays. The agent model usually uses a settlement cycle. The distributor model can use payment splitting.
Configuration recommendations
Monthly settlement is the most commonly used and aligns with the financial accounting cycle, making reconciliation and auditing easier. Weekly settlement is suitable for scenarios with high transaction frequency and rapid fund turnover requirements. Once the settlement cycle is determined, a settlement statement should be automatically or manually generated at the end of the cycle and executed for payment after financial review. The platform should support configuring different settlement cycles by agent to meet differentiated needs.
Settlement Cycle and Reconciliation
The settlement cycle should align with the operator billing cycle and the financial accounting cycle, so operator reconciliation and internal reconciliation are easier. During the cycle, data such as agent price procurement , sales attribution , profit-sharing ratio should be aggregated to calculate the payable profit share for each agent . The platform can configure settlement cycle reminders to notify agents to verify data before the cycle ends. The settlement cycle is the time dimension for settlement profit sharing , in contrast to the immediacy of payment split .
Settlement Cycle Configuration
The platform can support configuring different settlement cycles by agent , such as monthly for large agents and weekly for small agents. At the end of the cycle, settlement statements should be automatically generated, which agents can view and export in the agent self-service portal . The settlement cycle differs from the data plan cycle (user data plan billing cycle), as the settlement cycle is aimed at channel profit sharing. The settlement cycle is one of the core configurations for IoT Cloud Platform channel management.
Cycle Types
Monthly settlement is summarized according to the calendar month, with the settlement statement generated and payment made at the beginning of the following month; this is the most common method. Weekly settlement is summarized by week and is suitable for high-frequency trading scenarios. Custom cycles can be configured as biweekly, quarterly, etc. The settlement cycle should align with the operator billing cycle and accounting period to facilitate operator reconciliation and internal reconciliation. The settlement cycle is the time dimension for settlement and profit sharing, in contrast to the immediacy of payment splitting.
Whether the cutoff uses payment time or provisioning time
A settlement period is the time window in which channel shares are totaled. It is commonly a calendar month or a calendar week, and it can also be agreed per channel. It does not decide when a user’s plan expires. Which orders fall inside this window depends on the timestamp chosen first: the time the user paid successfully, the time the plan took effect on the carrier side, or the time the card was activated. Orders that cross a day are the ones most often disputed. Payment at 23:00 on the last day of the month and provisioning in the early hours of the next month, if the two timestamps are mixed, makes the channel portal and the finance export differ by that whole order. After the choice is made, also state separately whether a refund is placed in the original period by the original order’s timestamp, or in the new period by the time the refund succeeded. The first makes it easier to offset the original settlement statement. The second makes it easier to sit in the same month as the bank record.
The length of the period also affects items still in flight. Weekly settlement means a retry after provisioning fails must reach a conclusion within a few days. Otherwise the statement accrues success first and then has to issue a reversing entry. Monthly settlement leaves a longer window to close reconciliation, but the channel’s cash is tied up longer. The month on which the carrier bills the enterprise cannot be used directly as the month on which the enterprise settles with an agent. The two books often cut off at different moments.
An unclosed period cannot produce a statement that can be paid
The end of a period only stops new orders from entering this window. It is not an immediate payout. Before close, payment reconciliation and the necessary usage sampling have to finish, and orders awaiting attribution have to be cleared or explicitly carried. If a payable settlement statement is generated early, a refund that arrives later can only be deducted in the next period. If the channel has already withdrawn the money, the next period may not have enough to deduct. The states should therefore be accumulating, awaiting reconciliation, awaiting review, payable, and paid. Only a document that has reached payable can enter payment.
When different agents are configured with different periods, the enterprise general ledger should still be totaled on the enterprise’s own accounting month, so four weeks of a weekly channel do not fall out of line with the calendar month and become impossible to combine. SimtoLink settlement totals agent purchases and sales attribution on the period defined here. Amounts already split out at the time of payment are shown in this period as already settled, and they do not enter the payout. The implementation note can follow the statement rhythm in settlement and revenue sharing, but the statement date should not be fixed as the first of every month. Leave the working days the reconciliation close needs.
How four weekly settlements fold into the company accounting month
The channel receives a settlement statement by week, while enterprise finance still books on the calendar month. If a week crosses two months, the orders in that week are split into the two accounting months by the cutoff timestamp. The whole week is not assigned to the month that contains the weekend. Otherwise the share for the last few days of the month lands entirely in the next month. A weekly document should show how much of that week falls in each accounting month, so the figures can be combined. When SimtoLink issues the statement it keeps the order-level timestamp. A weekly document and a monthly report can then add up the same orders, instead of forcing four weekly totals into one calendar month.