---
title: "Monthly Commission Reconciliation Checklist (Free PDF) — Lapidar"
url: https://getlapidar.com/guides/commission-reconciliation-checklist/
description: "A free one-page checklist for reconciling carrier commission statements each month: 19 checks from before statements arrive to quarter-end, each with why it matters."
last_modified: "2026-10-12"
source: getlapidar.com (HTML converted to Markdown at the edge)
---

Checklist · Free PDF · 4 min read

# Monthly commission reconciliation checklist

**Short answer.** Each month, before any statement arrives, list what should come in and bring your schedules and AMS up to date. Then for each statement, check its total, tie it to the deposit and match every line in both directions. Check paid against expected, decide every difference, and post and pay producers only after that. Open items carry forward, and every quarter you review how old they are.

Nineteen checks in the order they happen, each with one line on why it matters. Print this page, or download the one-page PDF. No email needed, free to share.

By Lapidar, the team building it · October 12, 2026

[Download PDF](https://getlapidar.com/downloads/commission-reconciliation-checklist.pdf)

One page, US Letter. Or print this page: it prints as a clean checklist.

The steps come from our guides, which explain each one in full: [carrier commission statement reconciliation](https://getlapidar.com/guides/how-to-reconcile-carrier-commission-statements/) for the line-by-line check, [direct bill reconciliation](https://getlapidar.com/guides/direct-bill-reconciliation/) for month-end, and [agency bill reconciliation](https://getlapidar.com/guides/agency-bill-vs-direct-bill-commission-reconciliation/) for the account current. A checklist isn’t the work itself. Each box below stands for a pass through every statement, every carrier, every month.

## Before the statements arrive

1. List the carriers and agency codes that should send a statement this period, and how each one arrives. Why: A statement nobody collected never shows up as missing.
2. Confirm your commission schedules are current: rate by line of business, new business and renewal. Why: Expected commission comes from your schedule; checking the carrier’s rate against itself proves nothing.
3. Bring your AMS up to date: endorsements, cancellations and rewritten policies entered. Why: Many differences that look like carrier errors are gaps in your own records.
4. Open last month’s open-items log before any new statement. Why: This month starts where last month stopped: did the timing items and promised corrections arrive?

## For each statement

5. Turn the statement into one row per line and check that the rows add back to the printed total. Why: On a PDF, lines get dropped, split across pages or doubled.
6. On direct bill, tie the statement to the deposit, net of chargebacks; one deposit can cover several statements. Why: It proves the money arrived, not that the statement is complete.
7. Match every line to a policy and to the transaction that produced it: new business, renewal, endorsement, cancellation or installment. Why: Matched to the policy alone, amounts get netted in the wrong place.
8. Normalize policy numbers with care, carrier by carrier. Why: Strip too little and nothing matches; strip too much and last year’s term takes this year’s payment.
9. Run the match the other way: list AMS transactions that should have paid and have no line. Why: A statement shows what the carrier paid, never what it left out.
10. On agency bill, check the account current both ways against your invoices and collections, and that gross minus commission equals net. Why: Otherwise you pay the carrier for premium you never billed or haven’t collected.

## After matching

11. Check each matched line: commissionable premium times the rate on your schedule. Why: A line can match its policy exactly and still be paid at the wrong rate, or on fees that aren’t commissionable.
12. Classify every difference: missing, underpaid, overpaid, paid twice or not in your book. Why: Overpayments and duplicates matter too: the carrier is likely to take them back later.
13. Rule out the ordinary causes (installments, renewal rates, separate endorsement or cancellation lines, timing) and write down each decision, who made it and on what evidence. Why: A decision nobody recorded gets made again next month, possibly differently.

## At month-end

14. Only when every line is matched or decided: on direct bill, post the receipt; on agency bill, remit the net you agree with. Release producer pay after that. Why: Producer splits are usually figured on commission received, so an undecided line flows into producer statements.
15. Raise carrier errors with the policy, insured, statement line, premium, schedule rate, expected, paid and difference. On agency bill, send the exceptions with the remittance. Why: Carriers act faster on a specific request than on a general complaint.
16. Carry every open item forward: policy, amounts, reason, date raised, owner, and the statement where the correction should appear. Why: The log is what lets next month start where this one stopped.

## Every quarter

17. Review the age of the open-items log and escalate items raised and never cleared. Why: An item raised once and never followed up costs as much as one nobody noticed. A log that grows every month means the process isn’t keeping up.
18. Trace chargebacks back to the commission they reverse and check the rate taken back. Why: Chargebacks can land months after the cancellation and are netted out of later deposits.
19. Re-check schedules, appointments and agency codes against your agreements. Why: Schedules change, not always with a notice, and a terminated appointment changes what you should still expect.

## Frequently asked questions

### Do I need to give an email to get the PDF?

No. The PDF is a direct download, and you are free to print it, share it with your staff or link to it.

### Does the checklist work for both direct bill and agency bill?

Yes. Most items apply to both. One item is specific to agency bill: checking the carrier’s [account current](https://getlapidar.com/glossary/account-current/) against your invoices before you remit the net. Direct bill adds tying each statement to the deposit. How the two differ is in [direct bill vs agency bill commissions](https://getlapidar.com/guides/direct-bill-vs-agency-bill-commissions/).

### Is ticking every box the same as reconciling?

No. The checklist is the order of the work and what not to skip. Each box stands for line-by-line work across every carrier, and the decisions on lines that don’t match still have to be made by someone. That line-by-line part is what Lapidar is built to take over; it is in its founding pilot and has no customers yet. [See a sample report](https://getlapidar.com/sample-report/) built from invented data.

Lapidar is [commission reconciliation software for independent insurance agencies](https://getlapidar.com/), in its founding pilot. Related: [how to write a commission discrepancy letter](https://getlapidar.com/guides/commission-discrepancy-letter/) · [how to download and archive commission statements](https://getlapidar.com/guides/how-to-download-and-archive-commission-statements/).

In this checklist

1. [Before the statements arrive](https://getlapidar.com/guides/commission-reconciliation-checklist/#before)
2. [For each statement](https://getlapidar.com/guides/commission-reconciliation-checklist/#statement)
3. [After matching](https://getlapidar.com/guides/commission-reconciliation-checklist/#after)
4. [At month-end](https://getlapidar.com/guides/commission-reconciliation-checklist/#month-end)
5. [Every quarter](https://getlapidar.com/guides/commission-reconciliation-checklist/#quarterly)
6. [Frequently asked questions](https://getlapidar.com/guides/commission-reconciliation-checklist/#faq)

See what a line-by-line check of a statement turns up.

[See a sample report](https://getlapidar.com/sample-report/)

## Checking statements takes hours every month.

Every carrier formats its statements differently, and the lines rarely match your records on the first pass. Lapidar checks each statement line by line against your book and flags missing, underpaid and paid-twice commissions. A checklist tells you what to look at; Lapidar does the line-by-line part. [See a sample report](https://getlapidar.com/sample-report/), or read [how the founding pilot works](https://getlapidar.com/pilot/).

[Open an account — founding pilot](https://app.getlapidar.com/signup)

[See a sample report](https://getlapidar.com/sample-report/)