What deal registration is for
A partner who is about to spend weeks on a deal wants to know two things before they start: that you will not sell around them, and that they will be paid if it closes. Deal registration answers both. The partner tells you about the opportunity early, you confirm it is new to you, and from then on the deal is theirs for a set period.
For you, registration does a second job. It shows you what partners are working on before it reaches your CRM as a closed deal, which makes partner pipeline something you can forecast instead of something you discover at month end.
It is different from a lead referral. A referral partner hands you a prospect and steps back while your team sells. A registering partner, usually a reseller, agency or solution partner, sells the deal themselves and needs protection while they do. Most SaaS programs end up accepting both, so it helps to name them separately in your policy and pay them differently.
The deal registration process, step by step
- The partner submits the opportunity. They fill in a registration form with the company, the contact, what is being sold, an estimated value and a close date. Ask for enough to check the deal, and no more. Every extra field costs you registrations.
- You check it against your CRM. Is the company already a customer? Is there an open opportunity, owned by one of your reps, created before this submission? Has another partner already registered it?
- You approve or reject it, quickly. Two business days is a reasonable promise. A registration that sits unanswered for a week tells partners the process is a formality.
- The protection period starts. The partner now owns the deal for your stated period, often 90 days. During that time no other partner can register it and your team does not compete for it.
- The partner keeps it moving. They update the stage as the deal progresses. If it stalls, they can ask for an extension by showing real activity.
- The deal closes and the commission follows. A won deal creates the partner's commission or margin. A lost or expired deal is released, and anyone can register the account again.
The rules every policy needs
Write these down before your first conflict, not during it.
| Rule | A sensible default |
|---|---|
| Who can register | Approved partners who have signed your partner agreement |
| What counts as new | No open opportunity in your CRM and not an existing customer |
| Required fields | Company, contact name and email, product, estimated value, expected close date |
| Response time | Approve or reject within 2 business days |
| Protection period | 90 days from approval |
| Extensions | One 30 to 60 day extension with evidence of progress |
| Conflicts | First complete registration wins |
| Direct sales overlap | Your team keeps accounts it was already working before the registration |
| What protection gives | Commission or margin on the first contract, as set out in the partner agreement |
The protection period is the rule people argue about most. Too short and partners cannot finish a normal sales cycle. Too long and a partner can lock up an account they have stopped working. Match it to your median sales cycle, then let extensions handle the deals that run long.
A worked example
Brightline, a marketing agency in your program, is helping a client choose a customer data platform and wants to bring your product in.
- Day 0. Brightline registers Hawk Digital: one contact, an estimated $18,000 a year, close expected in 60 days.
- Day 1. You check your CRM. Hawk Digital is not a customer and has no open opportunity. You approve the registration, and Brightline's protection runs until day 91.
- Day 20. A second partner submits Hawk Digital. It is rejected, with a note that the account is already registered until day 91.
- Day 45. Brightline moves the deal to proposal. Your partner manager joins a call to help with pricing.
- Day 70. Hawk Digital signs an $18,000 annual contract. The deal closes as won in your CRM and Brightline's commission, say 10% of first-year contract value, is created as $1,800.
If Hawk Digital had gone quiet at day 85, Brightline could have asked for an extension, showing the proposal and the call notes. Without that evidence, the registration would have expired at day 91 and the account would have been open again.
Handling conflicts
Most conflicts fall into three patterns.
Two partners, one deal. First complete registration wins. If the second partner has a genuine role, such as an implementation partner the customer insists on, you can pay both, but agree the split before the deal closes and say so in writing.
Partner versus your own sales team. Your rep wins only if they had an active opportunity in the CRM before the registration came in. Being in a sequence, or having had one call last year, is not an active opportunity. Apply that test the same way every time, because partners talk to each other.
A registration nobody is working. This is what expiry dates are for. When protection lapses without an extension, release the deal and tell the partner why.
The channel conflict guide covers these cases in more depth.
Common mistakes
- Approving everything automatically. If nothing is ever rejected, registration stops meaning anything and conflicts land at commission time instead.
- Rejecting without a reason. Always say why: existing customer, already registered, missing information. A partner who understands a rejection registers the next deal. One who does not, stops.
- Keeping registrations in a shared inbox. You lose the timestamps that decide conflicts, and partners cannot see the status of what they submitted.
- Changing the rules quietly. If you shorten the protection period, tell partners and apply it to new registrations only.
Tracking it without spreadsheets
Deal registration is manageable by email for the first handful of partners. Past that, you need three things a spreadsheet does badly: a timestamp on every submission, a check against the CRM, and a status the partner can see without asking you. A partner portal with registration built in gives you all three, and closes the loop when the deal is won by creating the commission from the same record.
Whatever you use, put the rules in a written policy partners agree to. Our deal registration form template is a good place to start on the form itself.