Applications, agreements and payments answer different questions. An activity number that blends them answers none of them.
Stages, populations and the reporting period, defined before counting
Fix three things before the first count: the stages, the population and the period.
| Stage | What marks it | Where the date comes from | Unit counted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registered | An approved partner account | Partner portal | Account |
| Agreement in force | A signed Channel Partner Agreement inside its one-year term | Signature record | Account |
| Introduction recorded | A written record: portal submission, tracked application, email or acknowledged log | The introduction record | Unique company |
| Verified application | The company submits its verified application; attribution locks | Portal status | Unique company |
| Credit decided | Credited, duplicate, or still in duplicate review | SourceX's decision | Unique company |
| Accepted | The Acquisition Partner's final written acceptance | SourceX status | Unique company |
| Reward paid | Payment received | Your bank record | Payment |
The population is the set of partner accounts your fund controls: the fund entity, if it registered, and each person who holds an account. Count accounts, not headcount: a partner is an approved account holder, and one partner is credited per company. The period is a calendar quarter, and every event takes its own date, so an introduction in September and its application in October fall in different quarters.
The written-record rule comes from the Agreement: an introduction must be recorded in writing, and oral introductions must be confirmed in writing before protection attaches. Each record identifies the company, domain, partner, opportunity, method and timestamps. Those fields are also what a fund needs to deduplicate.
The activity definition and measurement guide
An account is active in a quarter when it passes three tests.
- Agreement in force. The account's Channel Partner Agreement was signed and unexpired on the introduction date. Partners sign before submitting introductions; the agreement runs one year and renews only with fresh acceptance and signatures.
- Permissioned introduction. The introduction was recorded in writing and the company's CEO knew about it and wanted the conversation. An introduction the decision maker did not know about is, in SourceX's screening guidance, usually not a fit.
- New-company application. The company submitted a verified application during the quarter, and duplicate review did not find it already known to SourceX. Under the terms, any earlier lead, account or email correspondence counts as an existing relationship. While review is pending, the account is "unresolved", neither active nor inactive.
Accounts that fail a test fall into four other tiers, each reported as a count:
| Tier | Tests passed | What it tells the fund |
|---|---|---|
| Active | All three | Introductions are reaching SourceX's records |
| Engaged | Tests 1 and 2, no application this quarter | Work in progress, or introductions that stalled |
| Enrolled | Test 1 only | Signed, not yet introducing |
| Registered | None; account only | Cannot submit introductions until signing |
| Lapsed | Agreement ended or expired | Needs renewal before new introductions |
Behind test 2 sits the fit screen every introduction should pass first: a workforce that peaked at 50+ full-time employees, contractors excluded; an operating history the company can document; rights to license; and location. Companies in the U.S., Canada and the EU qualify, as do companies in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, South Africa, Latin America, the UAE and Saudi Arabia when at least 70% of the data is in English. Partners describe records at metadata level and never handle them; the CEO authorizes a licensing discussion and signs for the company.
Methods note. The tests restate the program terms (version 2026-10-22.2, since replaced by version 2026-11-04), the referral home page and the Agreement sample, all checked 2026-10-26. The definition measures channel activity, not quality, acceptance or earnings, and it uses no SourceX figures. For context on how software companies credit partners: in PartnerStack and Wynter's survey of 100 senior leaders at B2B SaaS companies with $50M or more in revenue, fielded in September 2025, 42% used multi-touch attribution for partner revenue, 31% first-touch, 19% last-touch and 8% another method or none, and 14% named lack of visibility into partner impact as their top obstacle. That is a vendor-run survey of software firms. SourceX's terms take one position for this program: one partner credited per company.
A seven-account quarter, reconciled (Illustrative)
Illustrative: an invented fund with seven partner accounts, reporting the third quarter with statuses read on a fixed cutoff date.
| Account | Agreement | Companies introduced | Verified applications | Credit outcome | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Platform lead | In force | 3 | 2 | 2 credited; 1 still inside 90 days | Active |
| Partner A | In force | 2 | 1 | 1 in duplicate review; 1 already known to SourceX | Unresolved |
| Partner B | In force | 1 | 1 | 1 credited | Active |
| Partner C | In force | 1, the same company as the platform lead's | 0 | Counted once, under the platform lead | Engaged |
| Partner D | In force | 0 | 0 | None | Enrolled |
| Associate | Not signed | 0 | 0 | None | Registered |
| Venture partner | Expired in August | 0 | 0 | None | Lapsed |
Reconcile it before reporting:
- Introductions to companies. Seven introductions were recorded, but only six unique companies; Partner C introduced a company the platform lead had already introduced.
- Companies to outcomes. Of the six: 3 credited, 1 in duplicate review, 1 already known to SourceX, 1 still inside its 90-day window. The four outcomes sum to six, and none is dropped.
- Accounts to tiers. Active: 2 confirmed, 1 unresolved. Write the denominators out: 2 of 7 accounts, or 2 of the 5 with an agreement in force. With numbers this small, report counts, not percentages.
One company, one row: settling duplicates and open cases
Most errors in a fund's activity report come from counting the same company twice, or dropping the cases that have not resolved.
- Inside the fund. Agree in writing, before anyone contacts a CEO, which account submits for each company. Only one partner is credited per company, so a second colleague's introduction adds a record, not a company.
- Against SourceX's records. A company with an existing application, relationship or earlier valid introduction is reviewed as a duplicate and not credited to a later partner. Record "already known" as an outcome, not a failure of the partner.
- Open cases. An introduction with no application yet stays "inside 90 days" until its window closes, then becomes "lapsed without application". Duplicate review stays "pending" until SourceX decides.
- Corporate groups. Treat a parent and its subsidiaries as one row; the USD 50,000 floor applies once per referred company, not once per entity.
Partners see their own referrals through generic stages or reference codes, which is enough for this report. The network-segment tracking guide covers tagging by source, and the referral funnel overview describes the stages from SourceX's side.
Reporting what the quarter taught without annualizing rewards
A useful quarterly report to a fund's partners or investment committee holds learning, not projections.
| Report | Leave out |
|---|---|
| Accounts by tier, with denominators | "Partner engagement" scores built from logins or clicks |
| Unique companies by outcome, open cases listed | Introductions counted as companies |
| The fit fact that failed, for each no-fit company | Guesses at what a company would have earned |
| Days from introduction to verified application, as counts | Averages over two or three cases |
| Rewards actually paid or payable, from SourceX statements | Estimated rewards multiplied by four, or "pipeline value" |
Rewards need the strictest line. Under the terms, no lead, meeting or signed agreement earns a payable reward by itself, and until the supplier is paid, any reward on display is only an estimate built on proposed supplier compensation. As an Illustrative case, a USD 200,000 Actual Supplier Payout on a company's first qualifying transaction produces a USD 60,000 reward: one payment, months after the introduction, and not a quarterly run rate. A team that wants to see how repeat introductions develop can read the repeat referral partner case.
Where an activity definition can mislead a fund
- Lag. Applications trail introductions, so a strong introducer can show zero active quarters in a row. Read two quarters together.
- Volume incentives. A target for active accounts can push people toward introductions the CEO has not agreed to. Those are usually not a fit and can cost the relationship.
- Single credit hides contributors. The person who knew the CEO may not be the account that submitted. Record internal contribution separately from SourceX credit.
- Program criteria vary. SourceX applies the criteria of the specific program, so a quarter of declines can reflect a program's mandate, not a partner's judgment.
- Small numbers. Two of five is a fact about one quarter, not a rate.
- Confidentiality. The Agreement bars either party from publicly identifying the other as a partner or disclosing non-public deal details without written authorization. Keep names inside the fund.
How SourceX's program differs from a reseller-style channel is covered in channel partner versus referral partner, and the fund-side overview is on the venture platform page.
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.
Before your first activity report, make sure every account that will introduce companies has registered and signed, that each target company has been checked against who qualifies, and that the team has read the program terms on attribution and duplicates. More reporting methods sit in the guides index.
Measuring your fund's channel activity is referral work; investors who want SourceX's own company metrics should treat that as a separate inquiry, and SourceX shares them with investors directly through the SourceX investor overview.
This article is for information only and is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy securities. Any offering by SourceX is made only to verified accredited investors through its offering documents.