Glossary

Key terms used across Lasso and partner programs in general. If you’re new to partnership software, this is a good place to start.

1099: A US year-end tax form reporting income paid to a partner. Lasso handles year-end reporting and produces the appropriate documents for partners who were paid during the year.
Account balance: The funds you keep in Lasso to pay partners. Payouts draw from this balance, so you top it up ahead of a payment run rather than paying for each payment separately.
Announcement: A branded message you send on purpose to all your partners or a chosen group, by email, Slack, or both, once or on a recurring schedule.
API key: A credential your own code uses to call the Lasso REST API. Each key carries a role that limits what it can do, and its token is shown once, when the key is created.
ARR: Annual Recurring Revenue. The annualized value of recurring subscription contracts. A common basis for partner rewards in subscription businesses.
Attribution: Deciding which partner gets credit for a referral or deal. Attribution determines who earns the reward when a deal closes, based on the model you configure.
Automation: A rule that sends a partner a message automatically, by email, Slack, or both, when a condition is true, such as a partner who finished onboarding but has not submitted a deal. You can start from a ready-made automation or build your own.
Closed won: The point at which a deal is successfully sold. Many rewards are paid on closed-won deals, and the commission amount is locked in when the deal reaches this stage.
Commission: What a partner earns when a referral they sourced results in revenue. Lasso calculates commissions from your reward setup and records them as amounts owed, ready to be paid out.
CRM integration: A connection between Lasso and your CRM (such as HubSpot, Salesforce, or Pipedrive) that keeps partner, referral, and deal data in sync between the two systems automatically.
Custom domain: Your own web address for part of the partner experience: the partner portal, the partner directory, or the address partner emails are sent from.
Deal registration: The process of a partner formally claiming a deal they sourced, so their involvement is recorded and protected before the deal progresses. It prevents two partners from claiming credit for the same opportunity.
Field mapping: Configuration that controls what partner and referral information Lasso writes to each record in your CRM, so your CRM reflects partner activity the way your team expects.
First-touch attribution: An attribution model that credits the partner whose referral first brought a prospect to you, regardless of who was involved later.
Health score: A measure of how a partner is performing, calculated from metrics you choose. Health scores group partners into bands and can drive whether a partner moves up or down a tier.
Invoice: A record of a commission a partner is owed. Invoices are created automatically as deals close and are gathered into payment runs when it is time to pay.
Last-touch attribution: An attribution model that credits the most recent partner involved before a deal closed.
Lead: A prospective customer record. In a partner program, a lead usually originates from a referral and moves through your pipeline as it is qualified and worked toward a sale. The Lasso app calls these referrals, while the REST API and webhook events call them leads.
MCP: The Model Context Protocol, an open standard that lets AI assistants like Claude and Cursor securely connect to tools and data. Lasso has a built-in MCP server, so you can run your partner program in natural language.
Partner: A company or person who refers business to you in exchange for a reward. Depending on your program, partners might be agencies, resellers, affiliates, technology partners, or individual advocates.
Partner portal: The partner-facing side of Lasso, where partners submit referrals, see their commission status, manage their payout details, and sign agreements. It can run on your own custom domain.
Partner role: A role a partner assigns to the people on their own team in the portal, such as Sales, Marketing, or Finance & Legal. It controls what each person can do and which notifications they receive.
Partner type: A category of partner (for example agency, reseller, or technology partner) that carries its own defaults, such as the manager assigned, the rewards offered, and the application form a new partner fills out.
Payment run: A batch of partner payments processed together. You build a run from earned commissions, confirm the partners and totals, and send it so everyone is paid at once.
Payout: Sending a partner the money they have earned. Lasso gathers earned commissions into a batch, you review and approve it, and each partner is paid through the method they have set up.
Payout method: Where a partner receives their money: a bank account they add in the partner portal. The partner chooses the currency they are paid in, and Lasso handles any currency conversion.
PRM: Partner Relationship Management. Software for running a partner program end to end: recruiting and onboarding partners, tracking the deals they bring in, calculating what they earn, and paying them. Lasso is a PRM.
Referral: A potential customer that a partner sends your way. A referral is tracked from the moment it is submitted, through qualification, to a closed deal, so the right partner gets credit and reward. In the REST API and in webhook events, a referral is called a lead.
Referral link: A unique tracking link a partner shares to send prospects your way. Visits and sign-ups through the link are attributed to that partner. Links can be created automatically when a partner joins.
Reward plan: A named set of rules that determines what a partner earns, when, and in what currency. Each partner is on one reward plan at a time.
SPIF: A reward paid earlier in the pipeline, when a referral is qualified, rather than waiting for the deal to close. SPIFs (sales performance incentive funds) reward partners for bringing in promising leads. Once earned, a SPIF stays earned.
Tax document: A tax form a partner provides before they can be paid, such as a W-9 for US taxpayers or a W-8 series form for international partners. A valid, current tax document is required for payouts.
Tier: A level in a partner progression program, such as Bronze, Silver, or Gold. Each tier carries its own rewards, and partners move between tiers based on their performance.
Webhook: A message Lasso sends to a web address you control when something happens in your program, such as a referral closing won or a payout completing, so your own systems can react right away. Each message is signed so you can verify it came from Lasso.