Compensations calculated by a rule are sometimes not quite right for a particular case — someone finished just short of the next tier, or a company policy applies that no rule accounts for. An adjustment changes the amount without changing the rule, and records who changed it and why.
👋 Before you begin: an adjustment can only be made to a compensation that has not been validated or paid. If it has, Dolfin removes the option from the menu rather than warning you. That makes the order matter: adjust first, validate afterwards.
Here's what will be covered in this article:
Find the Compensation
You can open a compensation from Compensations, from Statements, or from a user's profile. This guide uses Compensations.
The Plan column tells you where a compensation came from. If it names a plan, a rule calculated it. If it is empty, someone added it by hand — and a manual compensation is edited directly rather than adjusted.
Click anywhere on the row except the source link, which opens the deal instead. The compensation opens as a panel.
Check What the Rule Calculated
Open the Calculation tab. It shows the rule that produced this amount, step by step — the conditions that were met and the formula that was applied.
🔍 Worth doing first: read the calculation before you adjust. Knowing what the rule actually did tells you whether the number needs a top-up, a different figure entirely, or no adjustment at all — and what to write in the reason.
Create the Adjustment
Open the actions menu at the top of the panel and choose Create adjustment.
You can adjust in two ways: by the difference — the amount to add or subtract — or by setting the final amount directly. Use whichever matches how you are thinking about the change.
⚠️ The reason is required, and it is read: it is what makes an adjustment auditable, and the recipient can see it too. Write it for someone reading it six months from now with no memory of the case — "bumped to the 12% tier, finished 2% short of target after the Q3 policy change" rather than "adjustment".
You can mention colleagues in the reason if someone should know about the change. That is optional.
Apply the adjustment. The compensation's value updates, and the change is recorded against it along with your reason.
If It Has Already Been Validated
A validated or paid compensation cannot be adjusted, and Create adjustment will not appear in its menu. You have two routes.
An admin can revoke the validation from the compensation's row menu, after which the adjustment can be made normally. Or, if the change is better recorded as something separate, add a manual compensation instead.
💡 Tip: this is easier to avoid than to fix. Adjustments belong before validation, so it is worth checking a period's compensations are settled before validating them.