What breaks first when a sub-agent network grows?
Attribution breaks first: which sub-agent recruited which student, under which agreement, at which rate, and whether they are still certified to represent you.
At ten sub-agents the owner knows. At a hundred, the spreadsheet has three versions and the WhatsApp thread is the record. The failure shows up at commission time — a sub-agent claims a share on a student your records assign elsewhere — and at compliance time, when an institution asks who recruited a student who has since transferred.
How should you structure a sub-agent network?
Model it as four tiers — master agency, agency company, branch, counsellor — and give every real-world entity exactly one record at exactly one tier.
The tiers map onto how agencies already operate:
| Your world | Record | What it owns |
|---|---|---|
| The head group, franchise network or holding company | Master Agency (labelled Master Partner by default) | Linked Agency Companies |
| Each sub-agency as a legal entity | Agency Company | Its Branches and Counsellors; its own agreement, BDM, Commission %, applied/approved/certified dates |
| Each office of a sub-agency | Branch | The counsellors at that office |
| Each individual recruiter | Counsellor | Their own students, applications and shortlists |
help-wiki/wiki/topics/master-agency-vs-agency-company.md; help-wiki/wiki/main-menu/agency-company/view-agency-company-details.md; help-wiki/wiki/topics/data-scope-by-role.md
An Agency Company can be linked to one Master Agency at a time; unlinking it removes the association without deleting the company or its data. The exception case — one counsellor inside an agency who belongs to a different master group — is handled by a master-agency link on the counsellor record, which takes precedence over the company's link.
help-wiki/wiki/main-menu/master-agency/manage-agency-partners.md; help-wiki/wiki/topics/commission-master-partner-layer.md
Who in the network should see what?
Each tier sees its own records and everything beneath it, and nothing beside it — a counsellor sees only their own students; a master agency admin sees every linked company.
Permissions and data scope are separate axes. Permission says what a role can do; data scope says which records it can see. The default scopes are:
- Counsellor — only records assigned to them personally.
- Agency Branch Admin / Standard — all records in their branch.
- Agency Company Admin / Standard — all records across all branches of their company.
- Master Agency Admin / Standard — records across every Agency Company linked to the master.
help-wiki/wiki/topics/data-scope-by-role.md
The consequence for a head agency is that two sub-agencies under the same master never see each other's students, and a sub-agent's counsellor never sees a colleague's portfolio unless promoted to a branch role.
How do you onboard a sub-agent without a spreadsheet?
Create the Agency Company once — or let it self-register — and the platform creates its first branch, first counsellor and first admin user in the same step, on a restricted sign-up role until you approve it.
The cascade is documented: creating an Agency Company auto-creates one Branch, one Counsellor for the primary contact, and a user account whose initial role is the organisation-defined sign-up role, which typically sees only the Institution list. Self-registration through the public sign-up page produces the same records.
help-wiki/wiki/admin-menu/agency-company/create-agency-company.md; help-wiki/wiki/sign-up/agency-company-sign-up.md
The agency then progresses through your stages — the wiki's example is Sign Up → Due Diligence → Contracting → Certification, with stages and statuses configurable per organisation. When Stage and Status match a rule in Admin Center → General Settings → "Auto Convert Agency Signup Role", the primary contact's role is upgraded automatically to the target role, typically Agency Company Admin. Until then the sub-agent sees institutions and their own profile, and nothing else.
help-wiki/wiki/topics/agency-sign-up-role-progression.md
Your paperwork lives on the record. The Agency Company detail page carries Applied, Approved and Certified dates, Agreement Status, Agreement Start and Agreement End, and tabs for Agreements, Documents, Cases, Contacts and History. Documents are uploaded to the agency's Documents panel; the Agency Company Admin can upload to their own agency. Additional users are added from the agency's Users panel and receive a login invitation automatically.
help-wiki/wiki/main-menu/agency-company/view-agency-company-details.md; help-wiki/wiki/main-menu/agency-company/upload-agency-document.md; help-wiki/wiki/main-menu/agency-company/add-user-to-agency.md
How do commission splits flow down the hierarchy?
The master agency takes its percentage of the institution commission first; the agency company then takes its percentage of what the master left.
The engine reads the chain from the student: Student → Counsellor → Branch → Agency Company → Master Agency. Each Agency Company and Master Agency carries a Commission Amount % field. The formulas, in the wiki's own worked example:
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Institution commission per billing period | $1,000 |
| Master Agency % | 30 → master amount $300 |
| Agency Company % | 20 → agency amount $60 (20% of the master's $300) |
| Same agency with no master linked | agency amount $200 (20% of the institution's $1,000) |
help-wiki/wiki/topics/commission-tier-flow-ip-bp-mp-ac.md; help-wiki/wiki/main-menu/agency-company/edit-agency-company.md; help-wiki/wiki/topics/commission-master-partner-layer.md
One gate governs everything downstream: if the Agency Company's Commission Amount % is zero or blank, neither the agency's nor the master's charge is created — even when the master has a non-zero percentage. Set the sub-agent's percentage first; the master's is only read once that gate is open.
Each link with a non-zero percentage produces its own Commission header — Institution Charge, Master Agency Charge, Service Partner Charge — with one Transaction per billing period. The full engine is on Commission management.
help-wiki/wiki/topics/commission-master-partner-layer.md; help-wiki/wiki/topics/commission-three-transaction-types.md
How do you stop sub-agents seeing your institution rates?
Commission visibility in Course Search and on Institution Courses is a separate permission from the Commission module, and it is off by default per role.
Two independent toggles control it: Show Commission in Course Search (action 9139) and Show Commission on Institution Courses (action 1225). Having access to the Commissions module grants neither. Where a sub-agent role is granted Course Search visibility, an agency partner sees the net figure only — GST on the institution's commission is not shown to them. On the Transactions list, a counsellor sees only transactions for their own students and a branch user only their branch's.
help-wiki/wiki/topics/commission-visibility-rules.md; help-wiki/wiki/main-menu/course-search/view-commission-in-results.md; help-wiki/wiki/main-menu/commission/view-commission-list.md
What will AU and NZ institutions ask you to evidence?
Australian institutions must hold a written agreement with every agent representing them, monitor those agents, and — since 31 March 2026 — refuse commission on onshore transfers; New Zealand Code signatories carry a parallel duty for the agents they use.
In Australia, the Department of Education's Standard 4 resource sets out that the written agreement under the National Code 2018 must include the institution's processes for monitoring the agent and the corrective action it may take. The Department's 2025 fact sheet on education agents and commissions describes what the Secretary may request from any institution: the dollars paid to each education agent, non-monetary benefits, and accepted-student counts. Since 31 March 2026, Standard 4.7 bans commission for recruiting a student who has already commenced with another registered institution (legislation.gov.au F2026L00033). An institution that engages your master agency, and through it your sub-agents, will want the sub-agent named on each application — because that is the level the regulator's questions are asked at. The detail is in our guide to commission compliance under the National Code.
In New Zealand, institutions enrolling international students must be signatories to the Education (Pastoral Care of Tertiary and International Learners) Code of Practice 2021. NZQA, which administers the Code, describes it as covering the expectations placed on institutions for the agents they use, enrolment and contracts. Read the Code's own outcomes for the clause that applies to your institutions.
What should you track per sub-agent?
Track the agreement dates, certification date, commission percentage, assigned BDM, the documents, and a read-only history of every change — on the record, not beside it.
The fields already exist on the Agency Company record: BDM, Commission %, Applied Date, Approved Date, Certified Date, Agreement Status, Agreement Start, Agreement End. Changing the company BDM cascades to its branches, students and sales region. The History panel records who changed what, when, with old and new values, for the fields your organisation has enabled in History Config.
help-wiki/wiki/main-menu/agency-company/view-agency-company-details.md; help-wiki/wiki/main-menu/agency-company/edit-agency-company.md; help-wiki/wiki/shared/history-panel.md
Where World Ready fits
World Ready is built around the four-tier hierarchy rather than bolted onto a contact list: Master Agency, Agency Company, Branch and Counsellor are record types with their own data scope. Onboarding a sub-agent is one create — or one self-registration — that cascades to branch, counsellor and user on a restricted role until your configured stage and status approve it. Each sub-agent's share is generated per application as its own Service Partner Charge, with the master agency's share taken first.
help-wiki/wiki/topics/master-agency-vs-agency-company.md; help-wiki/wiki/topics/data-scope-by-role.md; help-wiki/wiki/admin-menu/agency-company/create-agency-company.md; help-wiki/wiki/topics/agency-sign-up-role-progression.md; help-wiki/wiki/topics/commission-master-partner-layer.md
See the agency network on the product page, the Agency Group tier on pricing, the full picture on For recruiters, and the branding your sub-agents see on White-label CRM. What we choose not to claim is on What we won't claim; the sceptical-buyer questions are on the FAQ.
Questions answered
Can one sub-agent belong to two master agencies?
An Agency Company links to one Master Agency at a time. A single counsellor inside it can carry a different master-agency link, which the engine reads first.
help-wiki/wiki/main-menu/master-agency/manage-agency-partners.md; help-wiki/wiki/topics/commission-master-partner-layer.md
Why is the master agency's charge missing when its percentage is set?
Because the Agency Company's Commission Amount % is zero or blank. That field gates the whole downstream split; fix it and regenerate.
help-wiki/wiki/topics/commission-master-partner-layer.md
Can a newly registered sub-agent see our students?
No. The sign-up role typically sees only the Institution list until your configured stage and status trigger the role upgrade.
help-wiki/wiki/topics/agency-sign-up-role-progression.md
Do sub-agents see the institution's commission rate in Course Search?
Only if their role is granted Show Commission for Course Search, and then as a net figure without GST.
help-wiki/wiki/topics/commission-visibility-rules.md; help-wiki/wiki/main-menu/course-search/view-commission-in-results.md
Does an Australian institution need an agreement with my sub-agents, or just with me?
The Department's Standard 4 resource describes a written agreement with each education agent the institution engages to formally represent it; how that reaches sub-agents is a matter for the institution's agreement with you.
Sources
- Product mechanics: the platform's help documentation, cited by path under each claim (
help-wiki/wiki/…). - Department of Education, Standard 4: Education agents — education.gov.au/esos-framework/resources/standard-4-education-agents
- Department of Education, 2025 fact sheet: education agents and commissions — education.gov.au/esos-framework/resources/2025-fact-sheet-education-agents-and-commissions
- National Code Amendment (Education Agent Commissions) Instrument 2026 — legislation.gov.au/F2026L00033/asmade/text
- NZQA, Education (Pastoral Care of Tertiary and International Learners) Code of Practice 2021 — www2.nzqa.govt.nz/tertiary/the-code/