This page is for MSPs, integrators and systems consultants who already invoice the client. Timing a mid-engagement mention is covered in raising data licensing mid-engagement, and admin rights in can an IT provider share client data; here the subject is the boundary: which task sits under which agreement, who pays for it and where it is recorded.
Three agreements around one client, and you sign two
You are a party to two of these agreements and a stranger to the third.
| Agreement | Who signs it | What it governs | Money that flows under it | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Your service contract | Your firm and the client | The work in your scope: support, projects, migrations, advice | The client pays you, on that contract's terms | Access to systems for the listed services |
| SourceX Channel Partner Agreement | Your firm and SourceX | Introductions, confidentiality, contact protection and, in Schedule A, the reward rules | SourceX pays you a reward only if every condition is met | No data rights and no authority to share the client's records |
| Master Supplier Licensing Agreement and Dataset Deal Confirmation | The client and SourceX | The license, the exact dataset, the client's payout, rights and the processing route | SourceX pays the client | Nothing; you are not a party |
The partner agreement is narrow on purpose. Section 2.4 of the unsigned sample calls it transaction-specific, with no blanket non-compete and no exclusivity over a contact's unrelated business, so it never reaches into your IT relationship. Section 7.2 says the client's and the Acquisition Partner's agreements give the partner no data rights, and section 7.1 bars a partner from committing SourceX to prices, licenses or payouts.
The money runs on separate rails too. Under section 4 of the program terms, the reward "is paid separately by SourceX and is never deducted from the supplier's agreed compensation." Nothing owed to you comes out of the client's deal, and nothing about the reward belongs on your invoice.
The ticket that starts the thought, and who carries it upstairs
The opening nearly always arrives as ordinary paid work. Finish it as paid work, then raise the referral separately. Four kinds of ticket tend to start the thought:
- A legacy system is being retired, and someone asks what happens to its history.
- A migration scope asks which years to carry forward and which to leave in an archive.
- A storage or backup review turns up a decade of records nobody has opened in years.
- An acquisition brings a second set of systems to integrate.
Each is billable, and none is a referral yet. What could make one is a set of company facts: a full-time headcount that reached 50 or more at its peak (contractors excluded), years of records the company created itself, clear permission to license those records, and a chief executive who is keen to talk. SourceX's screening guidance adds two common reasons a company is a poor fit: material that belongs to its clients rather than to it, and introductions made without the decision maker's knowledge.
The person who hands you the ticket, usually an IT director, operations lead or controller, can sponsor the idea inside the company. Under the program, though, the decision to discuss licensing, and the signature, belong to the CEO. The sponsor carries a question upstairs; your part stops at describing the program and saying plainly what you stand to gain.
The service-versus-referral scope map
Sort every task by two questions: does it touch the client's systems, or is it a conversation with people, and which agreement is it done under? That gives four boxes. Three of them hold work. The fourth stays empty.
| Agreement | Touches the client's systems | A conversation with people |
|---|---|---|
| Your service contract | Box A: patching, backups, migrations, retention changes; billed as the contract says | Box B: status meetings, project reviews, answering the client's questions about its own systems; billed as usual |
| SourceX partner agreement | Box C: empty. No exports, record counts, samples, screenshots or inventories for SourceX | Box D: telling the sponsor the program exists, disclosing your possible reward, the written introduction after the CEO's yes; never billed |
Most tasks you will meet fall into one box without argument. These are the ones that get misfiled:
| Task | Box | Billed to the client? | Who does it | The rule behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saying, in a project review, that the archive holds 12 years of records | B | Yes, as part of the review | The project lead | It is a fact about the client's own systems, told to the client |
| Telling the sponsor that SourceX licenses business records and that your firm could earn a reward | D | No | The person at your firm who signed the partner agreement | Program terms, section 1; your own professional code |
| Answering "what would they want from us?" | D | No | Same person, pointing to the published criteria | A partner cannot speak for SourceX (agreement sample, section 7.1) |
| Counting tickets or invoices, exporting a sample or building an inventory for SourceX | C | Not done | Nobody on your side; the company describes its own scale when it applies | Agreement sample, section 4.2 |
| Submitting the introduction through your partner link after the CEO's written yes | D | No | The signatory | Program terms, sections 1 and 2 |
| Recording the referral | D | No | The signatory, in your own partner log, never the client's ticket system | Agreement sample, section 3.3 |
| Technical preparation if the company signs | Outside your role | Not by you | The company and SourceX, through SourceX's approved processing routes | How SourceX works, step 7 |
Box C is empty because the partner agreement leaves no room in it. Section 4.2 of the sample reads: "This Agreement gives Partner no authority to share a supplier's inventory, records, raw data or personal information, or to access extraction systems." Your service contract does not fill the gap: it gave you access to keep systems running, not to prepare records for a deal the client has not decided on. Nor does the company need you to. When it applies, it lists its systems, years of history and what can be exported, SourceX completes the inventory with it, and no records change hands at that stage.
Box D is never billed because that time exists only because your firm might earn something from a third party; charging the client for it asks the client to fund your opportunity. Professional codes reach the same place. The Institute of Management Consultants USA's enforceable code, at item 10.0, has members refuse third-party benefits tied to their recommendations unless the client knew and agreed beforehand (paraphrase). Read your own body's code before the first introduction; the compliance review checklist lists what a reviewer will ask, and fee-sharing arrangements explains how a third party's reward differs from splitting a client's fee.
Large partner programs keep referrals in their own lane too: Microsoft's Partner Center documentation has services partners open a co-sell opportunity in a separate Referrals workspace, with a field for the partner's role (paraphrase). Give a SourceX introduction its own record outside your delivery tooling, holding what section 3.3 of the sample lists: the company, its domain, the partner, the opportunity, the introduction method and timestamps.
Method note. The map was built on 2026-10-27 from SourceX's program terms (version 2026-10-22.2, since replaced by version 2026-11-04), the unsigned Channel Partner Agreement sample (version 2026-10-19), SourceX's how-it-works page and its screening page. Tasks are sorted by the agreement they fall under and by whether they touch systems. The map has not been tested against real service contracts. A contract with a broad advisory clause, or a client policy on vendor referrals, can move a task from Box B or D to "do not do"; nothing moves a task out of Box C.
Who holds the keys, who owns the records, who reviews them
Access is a fact about credentials; authority is a fact about the company. The referral works only while each party keeps to its own column.
| Role | Technical custodian: your firm | Customer owner: the company, through its CEO | SourceX |
|---|---|---|---|
| Holds | Admin credentials and a service contract | The records, its customer contracts and the decision | Its review process and a partner agreement with you |
| Decides | How to run systems within your scope | Whether to discuss licensing, what is in scope, whether to sign | Fit, rights review, credit and any reward |
| Part in the referral | Describes the program and its own interest; submits after a written yes | Applies, lists its own systems, signs or walks away | Reviews, agrees terms with the company, arranges preparation |
| Stays out of | The client's records, inventory and data room | Paying you for the introduction | Your service contract and your billing |
Whether the company may license what sits in its systems is a third question. It turns on who created the records and what its customer contracts say, which SourceX's rights review examines, and the company confirms the data has not already been licensed for AI training. None of that is for the custodian to settle.
One distributor, two ledgers (Illustrative)
Illustrative. A 190-person building-supplies distributor pays its MSP a monthly fee plus project hours. In March the MSP retires an on-premises order system holding records back to 2011.
| Date | What happened | Service ledger, billed to the client | Referral log, never billed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 3 | Retirement kickoff; the COO asks how long the archive must be kept | Project hours | No entry |
| Mar 14 | Project review; afterwards, off the agenda, the account lead tells the COO that SourceX licenses business records and that the MSP could earn a reward if the company signs | Review hours, clock stopped before the side conversation | Program mentioned to the COO; reward disclosed |
| Mar 21 | The COO raises it with the CEO, who replies by email: interested, send details | No entry | CEO's written yes, dated |
| Mar 22 | The account lead submits the introduction through the partner link and sends the CEO the screening page | No entry | Introduction submitted, with method and time |
| Mar 28 | The COO asks the MSP to pull an order count for SourceX | No entry | Declined; the company gives its own figures when it applies |
Suppose that months later SourceX paid the distributor $250,000 under its Dataset Deal Confirmation. The reward would be the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of that, $62,500, paid by SourceX to the MSP once every payment condition in the terms is met. The client's March invoices show the retirement project and nothing else. The figures are invented and imply no outcome; SourceX does not publish how it prices offers. Other MSP payout models are compared in MSP referral fees, and the payment sequence is in how to get paid for referrals.
Introduce the CEO with sentences, not a spreadsheet
The introduction note carries what the CEO confirmed and nothing your access produced. Four short paragraphs do it:
- Who you are writing as. "I am writing as a SourceX referral partner, separately from our IT work for you."
- Your interest. "If the company signs a licensing deal, SourceX may pay my firm a reward. It comes from SourceX, and nothing is taken from what you are paid."
- What stays with the company. "Nothing here asks you to share files with us or with anyone. SourceX assesses fit when you apply, and you can stop at any point."
- What you know. The company's name, the CEO, its peak full-time headcount as the company states it, and its main systems and years in plain words, all confirmed by the CEO.
Leave out value estimates, any claim that the company qualifies, numbers computed from a system, screenshots, customer names and credentials. Section 4.6 of the sample bars telling a referred company that an indicative estimate, positive interest, a signature or a data upload makes a purchase or reward certain. For a fuller metadata record before the note, use the system integrator's qualification sheet.
Where the line is hard to hold
- Broad advisory clauses. A contract covering "technology strategy" invites the client to assume the referral talk is included. Say it is not, and keep it off the invoice.
- Staff who hold the keys. A technician asked to "send SourceX a sample" says no and hands the request to the account lead. Train for it before it happens.
- The client's vendor policy. Some companies restrict suppliers from earning third-party payments connected with them. Ask the sponsor before you submit.
- Your own records. Licensing your firm's own ticket history would make you a supplier, not a referrer, and your customer contracts decide which of those records are yours.
- An agreement that ends mid-review. The published terms are silent on an introduction still in review when the partner's agreement ends; ask SourceX in writing rather than assume.
Next step
Refer a company. No cap on rewards. Default reward on a company's first qualifying transaction: the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap; further qualifying transactions first agreed within 12 months of the first Closing pay 15%. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, including the USD 100,000 Minimum Transaction, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
When every referral task on your map sits in Box D and the CEO has said yes in writing, register as a partner, check the company once more against who qualifies and read the program terms before anything goes to SourceX.