Any organization’ssales commission plan inspires, motivates, and ultimately drives sales. In order to properly achieve all of those things, it needs to be managed well. Who can do it best?
The right person to handle commissions has an eye for detail, a head for calculations, and an understanding ofsales commissionterminology.
Good sales commission management means sales teams receive commission payments reliably and on time with as few errors as possible. Being able to provide clarity and detail on sales commissions with understandable reporting is also key. This can be achieved through sales commission management software that automates every step and generates analytics and metrics. However, having someone who can oversee the process is always important.
The right person to handle commissions has an eye for detail, a head for calculations, and the ability to explainsales commission terminologyin layman’s terms to any salesperson asking about their commission payments. This type of person may be in the finance department or on the sales team. It’s up to the organization to decide how to assign that task.
Sales Commission Management May Be Handled By:
- Commission Administrator or Analyst: Sales organizations with the resources hire an employee dedicated to the administration or analysis of commissions. In some cases, more than one person may manage this task—especially in the case of larger sales teams. The person or persons who take on this role dedicate their workday to sales commissions.
- Sales Support Specialist or Analyst: Smaller companies may hand over the task of managing sales commissions to a non-commission-based member of the sales team. Oftentimes, this may be the sales support person or sales analyst. It would be one responsibility among other administrative duties, including analytics and reporting on sales performance metrics. If this employee already has tasks dealing with the support of the sales team, the tedious task of sales commissions could burn them out pretty quickly.
- Sales Operations Manager: Organizations with the resources often have an entire department dedicated to supporting the sales team. While salespeople go out and sell the product (either in the field or remotely), the sales operations team supports them with data analysis, strategy, and sales compensation and commissions. One or more individuals on this team may be responsible for sales commission calculations and reporting.
- Accounting Specialist or Analyst: Some organizations assign sales commission management tasks to a low-level member of the accounting team. Considering that the accountants are already doing calculations on the daily, adding a few more calculations and reports to their plate seems logical. They may have less connection with the sales team in this case which may or may not benefit the organization as a whole.
- Staff Accountant: In the case of an organization that has just one accountant, that individual may also be responsible for sales commission management. The addition of this responsibility to their already long list of duties may spread them a bit thin and prevent them from dealing with commission disputes or other accounting issues that may arise.
- Financial Analyst: Finance departments typically handle future financials while accounting is dealing with current or past financials. That said, occasionally a member or members of the financial team may be put in charge of sales commission calculations and reporting and its continued management. Once again, this individual is detached from the sales team and that will impact response to disputes or transparency in calculations.
- Accounts Payable Administrator: Since a company’s accounts payable team already handles other types of payments, they may also oversee sales commission payments, especially when it comes to contractors. One or more members may process calculations, generate reports, and disburse payments. If dealing with contractors, they may be in constant contact with those workers and be able to answer questions for them. But depending on how many people make up the accounts payable team, they may also be stretched a bit thin if they have to deal with the steps of sales commission processing.
- CFO, Managing Director, or Operations Director: While executive-level staff typically aren’t hands-on with sales commission calculations or reporting, they may be the ones overseeing the process from a high level. A CFO, managing director, or operations director may directly manage the individual executing each step of the sales commission process. They would also have direct input into sales commission plans and strategies.
Whoever handles your sales commission management, we can help lighten their load.Contact us and we can walk you through why Core Commissions offers a powerful, flexible, and cost-efficient way to manage sales commissions without stretching your existing team too far.
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The right person to handle commissions has an eye for detail, a head for calculations, and an understanding of sales commission terminology.
Sales Commission Management May Be Handled By:
