In this article: FAQs for incentives
Q: What do I do if I have a payment dispute?
If there is a discrepancy between your records and the monthly statement you receive, you should open a case with Incentive Support. The most common reason for discrepancy is the achievement was too recent to be included in a statement; milestones are paid within 45 days of the month they are earned.
Example:
- Milestones completed in June will appear in the July statement, which will be released by August 15. The payment process is initiated via Payment Central within 5 business days from when statements are issued.
Q: We have received statements over the past several months, but not this month. Why not?
If you do not receive a statement for a given month, it may indicate there were no milestones achieved in the statement period.
Q: My company is participating in a program with a pay-per-user / device rate card. What recourse do I have if I disagree with the calculation used for payment?
Please refer to program Terms and Conditions for eligibility and payment criteria. If you have any questions or concerns about the calculation, you may open a case with Incentive Support in the FastTrack Partner Community (FPC) Portal.
Q: How do I know if I will be paid for a recent achievement?
Each month, in addition to the partner statement emails sent, a blog announcement is published to inform the community that statements have been uploaded to Partner statements on the FastTrack Partner Community Portal. Earnings can also be viewed through the Partner Statement Power BI Report.
Please note that milestones are paid 45 days after the end of the month in which they are earned.
Example:
- Milestones completed in June will appear in the July statement, which will be released by August 15. The payment process is initiated via Payment Central within 5 business days from when statements are issued.
If you do not receive a statement for a given month, it may indicate that no milestones were achieved during the period.
Once payment has been initiated, the funds will be deposited into the partner's account based on the processing time of the partner's location/country. This can take up to 1–3 weeks.
Q: Why doesn't the payment amount in the statement match the amount deposited into our bank account?
There are several reasons this could happen:
- If a partner has several geographic locations and wishes to receive a statement for each location separately but has provided specific instructions to consolidate payments using the same Payment Central profile, the amount deposited into one account will include all locations aggregated together.
- Each Quick to Market Program a partner participates in will have its own statement. However, if the partner requests to use the same Payment Central profile across multiple programs, the amount deposited will be aggregated.
- If a partner is also paid by other Microsoft organizations that use Payment Central, and both payments are made on the same day, they may be combined in the same deposit.
Q: The latest statement shows we should have been paid a specific amount, but we're not seeing that deposit in our bank account. When will we get paid?
There are several reasons a partner may not have been paid:
- There are outstanding actions required by the partner in Payment Central.
- Payment has been initiated by the FPC Quick to Market Program, but funds have not yet been deposited. This may be due to internal Microsoft approval processes or delays due to the processing time associated with the partner's location/country. Please allow up to 3 weeks from the date the statements were published for the funds to be deposited.
Q: Why did I receive an email from Payment Central with an invitation for payee onboarding account set up?
You received the email as the Payee Contact for the Payment Central profile used for FPC Quick to Market program payments for one of the following reasons:
- Your organization has recently onboarded, and you need to complete your Payment Central profile with tax and banking information.
- The Payment Central profile for your Program Membership was never completed during onboarding, and you have a pending payment for the current statement period. If the profile in Payment Central is not completed, the payment will expire and will not be deposited.
- You completed the Payment Central profile during onboarding, but the Payee Name has been changed, or an accidental typo was made. If Payment Operations isn’t aware of the changes, payment for the most recent statement period was initiated using the old profile details (Payee Name, Contact Name/Email), creating a new profile. If the profile is not completed, the payment will expire and will not be deposited. After completing the profile, please reach out to Incentive Support to confirm which profile should be used for any future payments.
Q: Why don't I have access to the statements for my company?
The Primary Point of Contact and Accounting Manager have access to statements by default.
Additional users will need to have their Primary Contact or Accounting Manager update the user role to either Program Admin or Statement Admin role in the FPC Portal. See the Program Membership Overview article to learn more.
Approved contacts can access statements here: https://aka.ms/PartnerStatements.
Q How long do we have to dispute or request payment correction?
Partners have 90 days to dispute payment after receiving a statement.
Example:
- If a partner thinks a milestone was achieved in May and should have received payment in the June statement (delivered July 15), they have until October 15 to submit a dispute for the missing incentives payment using the Partner Support site.
Q: How do I remove individual access to our statements?
If you are the Primary Contact or Accounting Manager for your organization, you can edit, add or remove individual contacts in the FPC Portal. See the Program Membership Overview article to learn more.