What is deferred bonus pool?

Overview

Deferred Bonus allows your company to hold back a portion of earned bonuses and release them later instead of paying the full amount immediately. In Protiv, this can be configured in two ways:

• Deferred Bonus Pools for standard incentives
• Deferred Bonus for Recurring Jobs for recurring-job incentives

Both options support:

• a percentage-based holdback
• optional inclusion of deductions
• incentive scoping
• starting balances by employee

How Deferred Bonus works

When Deferred Bonus is enabled, Protiv separates eligible bonus earnings into two portions:

• the portion available to be paid now
• the portion that is deferred and released later

For standard Deferred Bonus Pools, deferred amounts are released on a structured schedule, such as quarterly or annually

For Deferred Bonus for Recurring Jobs, deferred amounts are released when the recurring job ends or renews

Where to find it

Go to Settings > Bonuses.

From there, you can manage:

• Deferred Bonus Pools
• Deferred Bonus for Recurring Jobs

Deferred Bonus Pools

Deferred Bonus Pools are used to defer a percentage of earned bonuses from incentives and release them later on a structured schedule. The Bonuses settings page describes this feature as deferring a percentage of earned bonuses and releasing them later, with eligible pools deferred quarterly or annually

Available settings

Incentive scope
Choose whether the deferred bonus pool applies to:

• All Incentives
• Select Incentives

If Select Incentives is chosen, specific incentives can be selected for that pool

Release schedule
Choose the release period:

• Annual
• Quarterly

If Annual is selected, a start date is entered and Protiv calculates the annual cycle from that date

Deferred percentage
Set the percentage of earned bonus amounts to hold back

Include deductions
Choose whether deductions are also included in the deferred balance, or whether only positive bonus earnings are deferred

Starting balance per employee
Optionally assign a starting deferred balance and reason for each employee

Effective for
Choose whether the rule applies to:

• Future incentives
• Current incentives

Release timing

For Deferred Bonus Pools, held bonus amounts are released according to the pool schedule rather than a job-specific event. Quarterly pools release at the end of the quarter, and annual pools release at the end of the annual cycle

All Incentives vs Select Incentives

If the pool is set to Select Incentives, only the chosen incentives use that deferred rule.

If the pool is set to All Incentives, it acts as the default deferred pool for eligible incentives that are not tied to a selected pool

Status behavior

Deferred Bonus Pools can move through several statuses, including:

• draft
• active
• paused
• stopped
• deleted

A newly created pool begins as a draft and can then be activated

Deferred Bonus for Recurring Jobs

Deferred Bonus for Recurring Jobs is a separate deferred bonus configuration used specifically for incentives tied to recurring jobs. This setting allows you to hold back a portion of recurring-job bonus earnings until the recurring job reaches its release point. The UI states that the deferred portion is released when the recurring job ends or renews

Available settings

Enable or disable the feature
Recurring-job deferred bonus can be turned on or off directly from the settings page

Incentive scope
Choose whether the rule applies to:

• All Incentives with recurring jobs
• Selected Incentives only

If selected incentives are used, specific incentive pools can be assigned

Deferred percentage
Set the percentage of eligible recurring-job bonus earnings to defer

Include deductions
Choose whether deductions are included in the deferred balance

Starting balance per employee
Optionally assign a starting balance and reason

Effective for
Choose whether the rule should affect future or current items

Release timing

For recurring-job deferred bonus, held amounts are not released on a quarterly or annual schedule. Instead, they are released when the recurring job ends or renews

Important behavior when settings change

When recurring-job deferred bonus settings are changed, Protiv may point the organization to a different deferred pool record instead of updating the existing one in place. This preserves the original configuration on existing statement line items

Include deductions

Both deferred bonus types support an option to include deductions in the deferred balance.

When enabled, negative awardable amounts can also be deferred. When disabled, negative amounts are not deferred

Starting balance

Both Deferred Bonus Pools and Deferred Bonus for Recurring Jobs support a starting balance per employee, along with a reason field. This can be used when employees need to begin with an opening deferred amount rather than starting from zero

Things to know

• Only one active all-incentives deferred bonus pool of a given type can be active at a time
• Protiv also prevents conflicting selected-incentive assignments across active deferred pools
• If a deferred pool is deleted, Protiv re-reconciles affected bonuses so the full bonus can flow through immediately instead of remaining deferred