BNI Tech Talk-Member Traffic Lights and TYFCB (June 26, 2026)

BNI Tech Talks: Member Traffic Lights and Thank You for Closed Business

Session date: June 26, 2026
Presenter: Jeremy Walsh, BNI Director of Support

Quick Summary

This BNI Tech Talk explores Thank You for Closed Business (TYFCB), how to record it in BNI Connect and the mobile app, and how it contributes to your Member Traffic Lights score. Jeremy explains the difference between revenue your business receives and the business your referrals generate for others, demonstrates how referral tracking can prompt a TYFCB submission, and covers repeat business, spin-off business, former members, visitors, and cross-chapter recognition. The session also walks through the membership-fee ratio used to check your TYFCB score, followed by practical questions about confidentiality, reporting amounts, and making sure referral partners receive recognition.

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Complete Session Summary

This recap reflects the demonstrations and guidance shared during the June 26, 2026 session.

1. What TYFCB Recognizes

TYFCB supports BNI’s core values of Recognition and Givers Gain. When a referral produces business, the member receiving the revenue submits a TYFCB slip thanking the person who made that business possible.

Your TYFCB total measures the business you helped other people generate. When another member thanks you, that recognition appears against your name in PALMS and contributes to your TYFCB score. The Revenue Received to My Business figure reflects the other side: revenue your business received and that you recorded by thanking others.

Visitors and referrals each offer up to 25 Member Traffic Lights points. TYFCB has a maximum of 5 points, calculated using a ratio rather than a single fixed revenue target for everyone.

2. When to Submit TYFCB

The main recommendation was to record TYFCB promptly when you receive payment for business generated through a BNI referral. Recurring payments also deserve recognition. A referral that leads to a monthly support contract can produce TYFCB each month that revenue is received.

Jeremy shared how his business flags BNI referral sources in QuickBooks and uses a revenue report to prepare regular TYFCB entries. A consistent monthly or quarterly routine can help prevent repeat business from being missed; waiting until the end of the year was discouraged.

3. Start with Referral Tracking in the Mobile App

For the first payment from a referral, Jeremy recommended starting with the referral itself:

1. Open the Slips Feed in the BNI Connect mobile app.
2. Select your Received referrals and open the relevant referral.
3. Change the status to Got the Business and update it.
4. The first time you make this change, complete the TYFCB slip that opens.
5. Enter the amount, select new or repeat business and the appropriate referral type, add comments if needed, and confirm the submission.

This keeps the referral partner informed about progress and prompts you to record the resulting business. When TYFCB is submitted through this workflow, the referral displays an associated TYFCB indicator. The referral-status update and the confidential TYFCB slip serve different purposes: updating the status does not make the TYFCB details visible to the referral partner.

4. Referral Tracking and Direct Entry on the Web

In BNI Connect, the Received Referrals Report lets you review referrals for a selected date range. To update their progress, use the Referrals Received / Track Online option, choose the appropriate date range, open the referral options, and update its status. Completing the referral can prompt a TYFCB slip, as demonstrated in the webinar.

You can also submit TYFCB directly from the home page using the entry associated with Revenue Received to My Business. This is useful for recurring revenue or when you are not starting from a tracked referral. A TYFCB slip does not have to be linked to an existing referral slip.

When entering several slips from a report, use Submit and New to continue to the next entry without repeatedly leaving and reopening the form.

5. Repeat Business and Tier Three Referrals

Repeat business: Continue thanking the original referral source when that referral generates additional revenue. For example, an ongoing computer-maintenance contract can produce monthly TYFCB.

Tier three or spin-off business: This is business generated by a referral of a referral. In Jeremy’s example, a member introduced him to a golf course, and that relationship led to work for another property. He attributed the resulting revenue to the original member and selected the tier-three option.

Repeat payments are not new referrals. The initial introduction is the referral; subsequent purchases from that same relationship generate repeat revenue. Jeremy illustrated this with a dry-cleaning service: weekly pickups should not create a new referral every week, although each payment can be recognized through TYFCB.

6. Former Members, Visitors, and Cross-Chapter Business

• Former members: Use the BNI entry at the bottom of the recipient list to record ongoing business originating from alumni members. Jeremy also described this line as applicable to some regional-office sources.
• Visitors: Use the Visitor entry when a visitor to the chapter buys from you or uses your services.
• Members in another chapter: Use Search Cross Chapter to find the person you want to thank. Enter only the information needed to locate them; unnecessary company details or spelling differences can prevent a match.

Cross-chapter TYFCB belongs to the chapter of the person being thanked. If a member in another chapter refers business to you, your TYFCB submission recognizes that member and their chapter. It does not increase your own chapter’s TYFCB total simply because your business received the payment.

Jeremy explained that the result of an earlier referral may continue to be recognized after the person leaves BNI. This differs from current referral and one-to-one activity, which PALMS tracks for accountability among current members.

7. What Amount Should Be Entered?

The session’s general guidance was to enter the gross invoice or business amount, rather than your profit. For example, the TYFCB amount for a computer sale is the amount charged for the computer, not just the margin earned on it. The amount field demonstrated accepted whole currency units, not cents.

For commission-based professions, Jeremy described using the gross commission earned by the business or firm. For a real-estate transaction, that means the firm’s commission rather than the selling price of the house or only the individual agent’s share. Similar guidance was discussed for financial advisers. For unusual transactions, check with your Executive Director to keep reporting consistent locally.

8. How TYFCB Contributes to Member Traffic Lights

The score uses the TYFCB credited to you over the relevant six-month reporting period, compared with the annual membership fee used for the calculation:

TYFCB ratio = TYFCB credited to you ÷ annual membership fee

This is why the same amount of TYFCB may produce a different ratio in locations with different membership fees. The metric awards up to five points. Jeremy described the highest scoring level as approximately 30 times the annual fee and demonstrated an example within the 5-to-15-times band.

Worked example from the session: Jeremy’s PALMS showed $14,050 in TYFCB credited to him. Dividing by an annual fee of $1,065 gave a ratio of approximately 13.19, which corresponded to 3 points in the scoring chart shown.

The spoken explanation did not clearly establish every band boundary. Use the applicable Member Traffic Lights scoring chart for exact thresholds rather than treating the verbal examples as a complete scoring table.

9. Checking Your Score in BNI Connect

1. Open the relevant PALMS report for your chapter. Jeremy discussed personal PALMS and demonstrated the chapter summary report.
2. Check that the report covers the six-month period used for the score you are reviewing.
3. Find the TYFCB total credited to your name.
4. Divide that amount by the applicable annual membership fee.
5. Compare the resulting ratio with the Member Traffic Lights scoring chart.

For a chapter-wide check, export the report to Excel and add a ratio column. Divide each member’s TYFCB by the applicable fee, fill the calculation down, and compare the results with the traffic-light report. Jeremy used a hypothetical fee in the spreadsheet demonstration to show the method.

10. TYFCB Confidentiality and Referral Statuses

Jeremy demonstrated that the chapter’s Slips Audit Report shows the member being thanked and the amount, but does not reveal who submitted the TYFCB, who received the revenue, or the client details. This allows recognition of the referral source without exposing the underlying transaction to the chapter.

The Confidential option in referral tracking is different. It acknowledges receipt of a referral while indicating that you will not share further progress details. Jeremy described this as useful for professionals whose client relationships are confidential.

Questions and Answers

Can I record a whole contract before all installments are paid?

Jeremy said that recording the full amount could be considered if payment of the entire contract is certain, but emphasized that correcting the amount later can be difficult if the contract changes or is canceled. Recording installments as payments arrive was also discussed and aligns with the session’s main recommendation to recognize revenue when received.

What about barter or a helpful introduction where no money changes hands?

Check with your Executive Director. Jeremy emphasized consistency across local chapters and discussed either not recording a monetary amount or using an agreed perceived value for barter, depending on local guidance.

Should I record business from a client I already had before the BNI relationship?

Jeremy advised against attributing existing repeat revenue to BNI simply because the client later becomes a member. TYFCB is intended to recognize business resulting from the BNI relationship and referrals.

Should I submit a new referral for every recurring payment?

No. Record the original referral and recognize subsequent payments as repeat business. Recurring transactions do not automatically count as new referrals.

What if I already entered TYFCB directly rather than through the referral?

Jeremy preferred starting from referral tracking, but stressed that getting the recognition recorded is what matters. Direct TYFCB entry is valid and does not require a linked referral. Avoid submitting the same revenue twice when updating a referral afterward.

What if a member has not thanked me for business I referred?

Have a polite conversation. Contact the member and ask them to record the TYFCB for completed business so the recognition is reflected in your records and traffic-light score.

When does cross-chapter TYFCB fully update?

Jeremy explained that it is fully updated when both relevant PALMS reports are closed.

How does cross-country currency conversion work?

Enter the amount in your own currency. Jeremy explained that BNI Connect converts the amount for the receiving chapter’s PALMS reporting. He was not certain of the exchange-rate update schedule.

Can I use crore notation in the amount field?

The advice was to enter the full numeric amount rather than an abbreviated designation such as “crore.”

How are Power of One and Member Traffic Lights different?

Power of One was described as an externally produced Excel report encouraging consistent activity. Member Traffic Lights includes additional metrics and was available through BNI Insights and the mobile app in participating countries. At the time of the session, Jeremy described the United States as primarily using Power of One. The two reports should not be assumed to use identical scoring.

Other Questions Covered

• Cross-chapter referrals in the app: Use the magnifying-glass search icon when selecting the recipient to search outside your chapter.
• One-to-one forms: Building and sending a custom one-to-one form was not available within the system at the time; prepare it externally.
• Professional titles on the chapter roster report: This was not supported at the time of the session.
• Profile privacy: In BNI Connect, open My Account > Privacy Center to manage public website visibility, including contact details or the entire public listing.
• Missing training on a profile: Contact the regional office to check attendance or whether the training needs to be added manually.
• Visitor welcome messages: BNI Connect sends an automated message when a visitor registers. Additional messages discussed in the session would need to be sent manually.
• Visitor points: The visitor metric is capped at 25 points. Bringing more visitors remains valuable but does not raise that metric above its maximum.
• CEU credit: Attendees were reminded to record one CEU for attending the session.

Key Takeaways

• TYFCB recognizes the person whose referral helped generate the business.
• Your TYFCB score reflects business you helped others receive, while Revenue Received tracks revenue received by your own business.
• Record repeat and spin-off revenue consistently, without creating a new referral for every recurring payment.
• Use referral tracking to keep partners informed and prompt TYFCB entry when you get the business.
• Check your score using the relevant six-month PALMS total, the annual membership fee, and the applicable scoring chart.
• Cross-chapter recognition goes to the person being thanked and their chapter.

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