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The Salesforce State of Sales1 report found that sales representatives only dedicate 28% of their workweek to direct selling activities. The remaining time is spent on administrative tasks, such as managing commission plans and generating reports.
These can be error-prone and time-consuming processes for businesses with a sales team. However, by implementing sales commission reporting software, companies can automate these tasks, saving both time and money for their sales force.
One such example of this is a leading finance company that has the major aim to provide loans specifically tailored to the needs of small businesses.
However, this organization had previously relied on manual methods for tracking sales performance and sharing commission data with its business development and credit managers. However, as the company grew, this manual process became increasingly difficult to manage. This impacted the transparency and visibility of commission data.
To address this challenge, the company integrated a commission management solution, Compass2.
As a result, this major player in the insurance industry noticed a 36% increase in payout adoption and a 34% increase in incentive program qualifiers in less than 90 days. This underscores the significance of commission reporting software in the sales field to provide sales reps with real-time insights into their performance, commission earnings, and more. Therefore, this blog will share with you a guide to understanding commission reporting software.
What is commission reporting software?
Commission reporting software is a tool designed to manage and track sales commissions. It automates complex calculations, generates reports, and improves the accuracy and efficiency of the commission process. If used properly, this solution can:
- Automate calculation to reduce errors in commission payouts
- Automate commission tracking and calculations to free up time for both sales reps and finance teams to focus on more strategic tasks.
- Let sales reps track their earning progress through real-time commission tracking to effectively achieve their goals.
- Help sales managers gain valuable insights into individual and team performance through detailed reports generated by the software.
Such benefits for your business can be yielded with Compass. It can not only automate calculating commissions quickly and accurately based on complex plans to eliminate the need for manual spreadsheets but also generate detailed reports and analyses of your sales performance and related processes.
This empowers you to make data-driven decisions for your business. In short, Compass is a valuable software solution that can streamline your operations and provide crucial insights for success. Let us take into consideration the case study of Asia’s largest CNC manufacturer that integrated Compass to streamline its sales process.
Asia’s largest CNC machine manufacturer that operates in Asia, Australia, the Middle East, North and South America, and Europe, aimed to offer complete solutions, tooling options, innovative work holding systems, capability process evaluations, and machines designed for easy maintenance.
However, they faced major challenges. With their operation expanding, their sales team grew to include over 32 locations worldwide. To improve efficiency, they were looking for a strong commission automation platform that could achieve three goals. They wanted:
- Their sales reps would be able to easily see their incentive data.
- Commissions to be calculated much faster.
- The sales managers spend less time manually processing commissions.
To ensure that one of the leading machine manufacturing companies in the world utilizes Compass to simplify their commission process. They integrated a multifaceted approach to get accurate results out of the powerful commission calculation and automation system.
Compass integrated features like program workflows, automated rule enforcement, approval processes, leaderboards, scorecards, and a mobile app for individual performance tracking to improve the accuracy of incentive calculations for the company.
Furthermore, it has streamlined the entire commission processing timeframe. They also integrated gamification to motivate the salespeople. As a result, this leading machinery manufacturer noticed:
- Transparency into how incentives are calculated ensures accurate payouts.
- Increased participation in incentive programs by engaging the sales team with interactive quizzes, login and activity badges, and a points system.
- Increased quota attainment by 20% within 90 days of launch.
- 22% increase in the number of salespeople qualifying for incentives.
- A 73% increase in platform adoption.
This case study demonstrates how sales commission reporting software, such as Compass, can benefit your business. Specifically, it can generate accurate commission calculations and reports. We will also discuss some important factors to consider when choosing the right commission reporting software for your needs.
Why is sales commission reporting software important?
Sales commission reporting software like Compass is crucial for businesses with commission-based sales teams. It offers significant advantages in several areas. Once integrated, the application can provide:
- Accuracy and efficiency: Manual commission calculations are prone to errors and can be very time-consuming. The software automates calculations, reducing errors and freeing up staff time for other tasks.
- Transparency and trust: Clear commission reports provide sales reps with a real-time understanding of their earnings and how their performance impacts their compensation. This transparency fosters trust and motivates them to achieve sales goals.
- Data-driven decisions: Sales commission reporting software generates reports that analyze sales performance metrics. This data allows managers to identify top performers, adjust commission structures for better results, and optimize sales strategies.
Let’s take a look at the world’s major beverage bottler and distributor that automated the commission reporting system to record an all-time high ROI.
One of the major players in the beverage bottler and distributor in the Asia Pacific region that employs over 19,000 people and generates more than $4.5 billion in revenue wanted to bring change in their sales commission reporting process.
Their current process included manually counting incentives. However, the method was time-consuming and left limited opportunity to generate insights and ensure data accuracy. So, this leading beverage bottler and distributor, to improve the efficiency of the process for calculating and validating customer data, streamlined the sales commission reporting process.
This consolidation allowed the sales staff to dedicate more time to reviewing and analyzing the results, saving time and manual effort that could be spent on important administrative tasks. As a result, this major beverage distributor company noticed:
- That the ROI was achieved within a three-month timeframe.
- Rebates are calculated for approximately 100 customers on a monthly or quarterly basis.
- A new system successfully replaced over 57 spreadsheets An access database that utilized Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).
- The system processes data at the product level and handles more than 250,000 transactions each month.
How to choose the right sales commission reporting software
Choosing the right sales commission reporting software involves balancing your business needs with user experience, scalability, security, and budget.
- Business needs: Evaluate your specific requirements for sales commission tracking and reporting. Identify the features and capabilities that are most important for your business, such as automated commission calculations, performance tracking, or advanced analytics.
- Ease of use: Look for software that is intuitive and user-friendly, with a simple interface that makes it easy for your sales team to access and understand their commission data.
- Scalability: Consider how the software will scale as your business grows. Ensure the platform can accommodate increasing numbers of sales reps and transactions without compromising performance.
- Integrations: Assess the software's ability to integrate with your existing CRM, ERP, and other business systems to streamline data flow and ensure accurate commission reporting.
- Security: Evaluate the software's security features and data protection measures to safeguard sensitive sales and financial information.
- Budget: Determine your budget for sales commission reporting software and look for solutions that provide the best value and return on investment for your organization.
By carefully considering these factors, you can select the sales commission reporting software that best meets your business needs and supports the success of your sales team.
Conclusion
Sales commission reporting software is a crucial tool for businesses that want to manage and track their sales commissions effectively. The software automates commission calculations to reduce the risk of errors that can occur with manual calculations. We recommend Compass, a low-code platform that allows you to effortlessly design and automate multiple commission plans for any KPI. With Compass, you can:
- Automate commission calculations to arrive at accurate amounts for sales reps
- Improve data for a better incentive structure
- Get real-time insights and predictive analytics for better business decisions
Connect with our experts to book a demo call to know how our solution could be the answer to your commission reporting issues.
Citations
1. Salesforce State of Sales report. (n.d.-b). Salesforce. https://www.salesforce.com/resources/research-reports/state-of-sales/
2. How Compass Helped a Fintech Platform Reduce Time to Commission Payouts [Case Study]. (n.d.). NA. Retrieved from https://www.getcompass.ai/case-study/urgo
