Compensation coming from the buyer rather than the seller has its own field — it just isn't showing until you open it. Here is where it lives, and what to do from the listing side where it doesn't.
Introduction
Since the commission structure changed, a growing share of deals have money arriving from the buyer directly, or split between the buyer and the seller. The Commission Module handles it, but the field is hidden until you ask for it. That's why most of the questions about this start with where do I even put it?
On a buying-side transaction there's a second commission field waiting behind a small control next to the first one. Open it, enter each portion, and both sources print on the CDA so your closing agent knows exactly who owes what. From the listing side, where that field isn't the right instrument, a client fee does the same job.
When to Use This
- Your buyer is paying their agent's compensation directly under a buyer-broker agreement.
- Compensation is split — part from the seller, part from the buyer — and both need to be on the CDA.
- The seller is offering nothing and the whole amount is coming from the buyer.
- You're on the listing side and need to show a buyer-paid amount.
- Escrow came back asking who is actually paying which portion.
1. Open the Buyer-Paid Field on the Buying Side
In the first step of commission entry, look at Commission (paid by Seller) on the buying side and click the blue [+] to its right. That reveals an optional Commission (paid by Buyer) field.
Manage Commissions is the one screen where you record a transaction's money, and it's what your CDA and every financial report are built from.
See Manage Commissions Workspace
2. Enter Each Portion
Fill in both fields with what each party is actually paying, as a percentage or a dollar amount. If the seller is contributing nothing, enter zero for them rather than leaving it out — the zero is what makes the document unambiguous.
The two figures combine into the gross the rest of the form works from, so your splits, fees, and deductions all calculate on the full compensation regardless of who paid which piece.
3. Check Both Sources on the CDA
Once you save, both amounts appear on the CDA with their source named, so escrow, title, or the closing attorney can see who owes what without calling you. Read that section before you send it — this is the part of the document the new structure made load-bearing.
The Commission Disbursement Authorization tells your closing agent how the commission should be split — and Pipeline builds it from the numbers you enter on the transaction.
See CDA Generation
4. Use a Client Fee From the Listing Side
The buyer-paid field belongs to the buying side. When you're representing the seller and still need to show an amount the buyer is paying — a buyer-broker fee your office is collecting — create a client fee named for it and apply it in the fees and deductions step with the buyer as the payor, entered under whoever keeps it.
When a buyer or seller pays something on top of the commission, that's a client fee — collected at closing and routed to your brokerage or to the agent.
See Client Fees
A buyer or seller owes your office something that isn't commission — a broker fee, a retainer, a reimbursement, a tax. Client Fees is the one mechanism that collects it at closing, and it works even when the commission is zero.
See Collect a Fee From the Buyer or Seller
For an arrangement neither route covers cleanly, write it into the CDA's special instructions so the closing agent is told in plain language what to collect from whom.
Wire instructions, a mailing address, an MLS number, a fee to collect from the other side — real closing details with no box to put them in. There's one field for all of it, and it prints.