The 9 essentials for working with incentives

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Appropriate roles: Incentives admin | Incentives user

The Microsoft Incentives program is a powerful tool that rewards partners for engaging customers with Microsoft products and services. The more you understand the program, the better your chances of success.

We recommend you do the 10 essentials listed below before you get started with the incentives program. They'll help ensure that your incentives experience is a good one, and help prevent delays in your incentive payouts.

1. Join the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program

If you're not yet a Microsoft partner, you'll need to join the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program to take advantage of incentives and other benefits. To learn more, see Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program Membership.

2. Read your Incentives Program Guide

Each incentive program has its own detailed program guide. In this guide you'll find eligibility and enrollment requirements, earning opportunities, and other information unique to your program. To access your program guide, see Program Guides.

3. Learn about roles and permissions

It's important to get a solid understanding of the roles and permissions involved with the incentives program. Once you've done this, you can decide which roles should be assigned to the people in your company. To learn more, see What user roles are available?

4. Gather the necessary enrollment information

Enrolling in the incentives program requires a certain amount of information about your company. Make sure you have it all together before you get started. To learn more, download and see Enroll in the incentives program

5. Set up your tax and banking profile

Nearly all payout delays or other interruptions in the incentives process are the result of an inaccurate or incomplete tax and banking profile. Make sure enrollment to the incentive program is complete and your payment and tax profiles are in good shape before you start your incentives program. To learn more, see Payout and tax profiles in Partner Center.

6. Review the incentives FAQ

You can get answers to common incentives questions before you even think of them. We update Frequently asked questions on Incentives often, using information from Microsoft Support and direct communication with partners.

7. Confirm your program eligibility

This generally involves making sure you've provided Microsoft with all of the required company profile documentation, and that you've achieved any required competencies.

8. Confirm your earnings eligibility

Like the previous task, this generally involves making sure you've provided Microsoft with all of the information we need.

9. Read the Partner Center online help

You'll find detailed procedures for doing all of the tasks listed above. You can read the whole Incentives section in about an hour, and most articles only take a minute or two. To begin reading the help, see Getting started.

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