Technology Industry Sales Commission

• Pay commission by various types of services such as legal, audit, etc.
• Calculate commissions-based sales revenue or profit.
• Pay commissions at time of invoicing, at time of payment or when job is complete.
• Pay commissions on one-time payments or on multiple payments for a payment plan.
• Pay different commission rates for different services
• Pay different commission rates by payment plan
• Pay different commission rates for sales reps
• Split commission rates between sales reps
• Pay overrides to managers and principals
• Deduct service fees prior to calculating commissions
• Pay referral commissions
• Pay commissions as a portion of results, flat amounts, tier rate with thresholds, etc.
• Calculate incentives weekly, bi-weekly, monthly and other Chargeback commissions for cancelled contracts.
• Handle negative payouts.
• Pay draws or guaranteed payouts.

Import/ Export

• Pay for Inside/Outside Sales staff, Managers, Implementers, Consultants
• Pay commissions on periodic basis starting from weekly
• Pay commissions on Product SPIFs
• Get costs for invoices from associated POs or directly from Products/Services
• Calculate gross margin after deducting costs and expenses
• Pay commissions on Revenue, Gross margin, Billed hours, etc
• Pay flat and tiered commissions rates
• Pay overrides for Managers
• Pay commissions on Invoice, Receipt of Cash or after completion of a job

Reporting

• Produce detailed commission statements by payee. 
• Reproduce commission statements for prior periods. 
• Report on split credits and uncredited transactions 
• Analyze historical transaction and payment information
• Email commission statements to payees. 
• View commission statements through the web.

Customer Profile

GETINGE is a global medical technology company, founded in Sweden in 1904. The firm provides equipment and systems within healthcare and life sciences. GETINGE currently is located in 40 countries, has sales in more than 160 countries, and more than 15,500 employees. Further growth is expected on the horizon.

The company was formerly organized in three business areas: 1) Medical Systems (Maquet), 2) Infection Control (Getinge, division); and 3) Extended Care (ArjoHuntleigh). In 2017, the company announced it would begin to operate under a single combined brand “GETINGE”.

The QCommission project began with Maquet group, whose plans went live 2nd QTR 2017. In 3rd QTR 2017, the Getinge (division) plans began being phased in, with the balance of plans to be completed by 1st QTR 2018, almost doubling the number of payees coming on to QCommission within one year (from 400+ to almost 800 payees.)

The Challenge

Laura Garbarini, Getinge's former Sales Compensation Analyst, provided an invaluable detailed perspective about the extensive scope of sales commission plans they were looking to further automate, move onto a more scalable platform, add audit trails, and eventually workflow.

According to Laura, Getinge has 60+ complex compensation plans, calculated across almost 800 payees. This was being performed in a combination of Microsoft Access and Excel (60+ Plans x 12 Periods …was over 700+ separate Access db and Excel files.)

The complexity made it difficult to consistently track payees, and movement. Payee movement consists of multiple prorates such as new hires additions, guarantee / floor guarantees periods, draw payments, leaves of absence, terminations, etc. On average, Getinge handles almost 300 payee movements annually.

Due to the separation of data, different formatted sales source files, and payee movements, certain components of the compensation plans were very challenging to track (e.g. catch-up bonuses and accelerators.) Auditing processes required two to three employees efforts, which took up an exorbitant amount of time.

The Solution

While their overall payout error rates had been low, much was attributed to the labor-intensive efforts of the compensation team. Leaving them little time to do more proactive tasks, including analysis and planning activities. As well as their current system was not scalable. So, Laura and her team went online to research for a solution. They started with five industry leading software solutions for commission / variable pay systems, which they quickly narrowed down to three after a careful needs analysis.

According to Laura, of the three finalists "We found that QCommission was the most flexible, cost effective solution, and was able to meet all of our requirements, whereas other vendors could not."

Here are some of the requirements QCommission needed to meet: • Credit amount – sales by product, credited on a one to one, or a one to many basis • Splits – guarantee, floor guarantee, terminations, LOA, prorations, and podding (cross matrix crediting relationship of payee to multiple territories “pods” for multiple products.) • Overrides • Draws For 2017, Getinge had 41 compensation plans, and will increase to 64 compensation plans in 2018.

"Due to the nature of sales commissions, there are always tight deadlines, and quarter-ends tend to be the most hectic because it is when we true-up our monthly draw payments. Prior to implementing QCommission, during a non-quarter-end cycle, processing sales commission took approximately three to four days minimum and required three people to audit. During a quarter-end cycle, processing took approximately five to six days minimum and also still required three people to audit. With QCommission fully implemented, processing now takes approximately two to three days minimum and requires one to two people to audit. Even better, now our quarter-end cycles only take approximately four to five days minimum and requires no more than one to two people to audit sales commissions." That’s between a 55% to 65% reduction in time required by the compensation team. Freeing them up for other more proactive tasks and analytics.

When asked about her overall experience during the onboarding process, this is what Laura had to say, "The QCommission team's efforts were above and beyond what we would expect from a vendor. Throughout implementation, the QCommission team was consistent and really took the time to understand and try to improve our complex processes. During go-live, the communication was a little sparse, however upon post-discussion, communication has been excellent going forward."

Getinge has been a satisfied QCommission customer for approximately a year now, and they have explicitly stated their plans to renew again next year.

Customer Profile

It’s Never 2 Late is a company that delivers dignity through technology by helping older adults realize the full benefits of today’s technology. iN2L (It’s Never 2 Late) helps anyone learn how to use a computer minus the frustration. They have developed a system that allows users to touch their way through the learning process. The same system allows users to progress at their own pace, allowing the whole journey to be a pleasurable one.

Founded in 1999, iN2L’s systems are now installed at more than 2,000 senior living communities across the United States and four countries.

The Problem

iN2L has a rather complex sales commission structure, which they need to face twice a month. Part of their monthly struggle was updating the sales amount as the credit amount from sales orders, extracting payee data from QuickBooks, splitting commissions, calculating commissions based on invoiced event, and calculating commissions for different roles.

The manual process was inefficient and error-prone. Automating their sales commissions was inevitable if they wanted to step forward. iN2L went on a search for a sales commission software that can handle their complex needs. They came across QCommission and requested for a demo, and they haven’t looked back since.

The Project

The QCommission team met with Curt Frisch, iN2L’s Director of IT, and discussed everything that needed to be considered in the development of a custom solution. The QCommission team’s focus was to help Curt’s bi-monthly sales commission task easier to manage. The team made sure to consider the following needs when they built iN2L’s custom solution:

1. Updating of sales amount as the credit amount from sales orders
2. Extracting of payee data from Quickbooks
3. Split commissions
4. Calculating commissions based on invoiced event
5. Calculating commissions for different roles

To this day, four years down the road, iN2L is still using QCommission for their sales commission needs.