Do it with One: "What incentive plans do we have?"
An incentive plan links people's variable compensation to goal results, calculates each person's payout at the end of every period and sends it to the payroll cycle. Customers also call this a bonus plan, variable pay plan or commission plan. Incentive plans live in Compensation > Incentive plans, not inside Goals.
One can help with incentive plans
| What One can do | |
|---|---|
| 🔍 Ask | List your incentive plans, who is on a plan and which people have compensation issues, and each person's overall achievement, variable amount and amount to pay for a period |
| ⚡ Do | Create a plan, fill in its goals, weights and payout rules in the form for you to save, remove people from a plan, fix a duplicate compensation, and add a missing variable compensation to contracts |
| 🚫 Not yet | Send payouts to the payroll cycle, activate or archive a plan. One's incentive plan features are for admins with Manage incentive plans only |
Try: "What incentive plans do we have?" · "Create a quarterly incentive plan for the Sales team" · "For each person on the Sales bonus 2026 plan, show their overall achievement and amount to pay this quarter"
→ Ask One about reviews, feedback, competencies and incentive plans
Before you start
- Incentive plans are part of the Enterprise plan. Your company needs Compensation and Goals. If your company has Compensation but not Goals, the Incentive plans tab shows an upgrade page instead of your plans.
- Only people with the Manage incentive plans permission see the Incentive plans tab.
- Incentive plans pay on goals from the Goals module. Create the goals you want to reward before you set up a plan.
How an incentive plan is built
An incentive plan brings five things together:
| Part | What it is | Where you set it |
|---|---|---|
| Period and Recurrence | The calendar year the plan covers and how often it pays: Monthly, Quarterly, Half-yearly or Yearly. A quarterly plan for 2026 has four periods: Q1 2026, Q2 2026, Q3 2026 and Q4 2026. | Basic information step |
| People | Who the plan rewards: Whole company, Legal entities, Teams, Roles or hand-picked People. | Basic information step, reviewed in the People step |
| Payroll concept | The variable compensation concept that the payouts are written to. Each person needs a variable compensation with this concept and an Amount up to value on their contract. | Basic information step |
| Goals | One or more goals, each with a Weight. The weights must add up to 100%. | Goals step |
| Payout rules | For each goal, the tiers that turn an achievement percentage into a payout percentage. | Edit weights & rules |
How the payout works in one example
The payout of an incentive plan is the person's variable amount multiplied by the plan's overall payout percentage.
Example: Ana has a variable compensation of Amount up to €4,000 per quarter. Her quarterly plan has two goals, Revenue (weight 60%) and Customer retention (weight 40%). At the end of Q1, Revenue reached 80% and Customer retention reached 50%, and neither goal has payout rules. The overall payout percentage is (60% × 80%) + (40% × 50%) = 48% + 20% = 68%. Ana's payout is €4,000 × 68% = €2,720.
Plan statuses
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Draft | The plan is being set up. Nothing is calculated or paid. A draft plan can be deleted. |
| Active | The plan calculates payouts every period. The Period, Recurrence and Payroll concept are locked. People, goals, weights and payout rules can still change for periods that haven't been sent to payroll. |
| Archived | The plan is read-only and can no longer be sent to payroll. Its variable compensations are released so other plans can use them. Archiving can't be undone. |
Rules and behavior
- If a company has Compensation and Goals and the person has the Manage incentive plans permission, then Compensation > Incentive plans is visible.
- If a company has Compensation but not Goals, then the Incentive plans tab shows an upsell page to people who can request upgrades.
- A plan always moves from Draft to Active to Archived, in that order. It never moves back.
- Every period of a plan pays separately. Sending Q1 to payroll does not send Q2.
- If goals are over-achieved and no payout rule caps them, then a person's payout can be higher than their Amount up to value.
- Any goal whose period and frequency match the plan can be linked to it.
- A goal's achievement is the same for every person in the plan. Two people on the same plan get the same overall payout percentage; their amounts differ only because their variable amounts differ.
Limitations
- An incentive plan can't pay on anything other than goals, for example sales figures imported directly or attendance.
- A plan covers one calendar year. To continue a plan the next year, create a new plan.
- An incentive plan can't hold a fixed bonus amount typed into the plan. The amount always comes from the Amount up to value of each person's variable compensation on their contract.
- A person's individual result on a shared goal is not used. The goal's overall result counts for everyone in the plan.
- Incentive plans are not available in the mobile app.
Troubleshooting
- Symptom: "I can't find Incentive plans in Compensation." → Cause: You don't have the Manage incentive plans permission, or your company doesn't have both Compensation and Goals. → Fix: Ask an admin to grant Manage incentive plans in Settings > Permissions, or contact your account manager about Goals.
- Symptom: "Incentive plans opens an upgrade page." → Cause: Your company has Compensation but not Goals. → Fix: Request Performance from the upgrade page or your account manager.
FAQ
1. Where do I find incentive plans?
Go to Compensation > Incentive plans. They are not inside the Goals section, but each goal shows the plans it belongs to in its Incentive plans tab.
2. Can one plan pay on more than one goal?
Yes. Add several goals and give each a Weight. The weights must add up to 100%.
3. Can a person be in more than one incentive plan?
Yes, as long as each plan uses a different variable compensation from the person's contract. One variable compensation can only belong to one plan that isn't archived.
4. Can the payout be more than the variable amount?
Yes. If goals are over-achieved and the payout rules don't cap the result, the overall payout percentage can go above 100%. For example, an overall payout of 110% on Amount up to €4,000 pays €4,400.
5. Do employees see their incentive plan?
Not inside the incentive plan pages. The plan pages are only visible to people with Manage incentive plans. Once a payout is sent, it becomes the variable compensation amount in the payroll cycle, and reaches the employee through payroll.
Ask One: One's incentive plan features are available to admins with Manage incentive plans only. For example:
- "What incentive plans do we have?"
- "Create a quarterly incentive plan for the Sales team"
- "Which goals can I add to the Sales bonus 2026 plan?"