This is a guest blog from Graham Collins, Chief of Staff at QuotaPath, an automated commission tracking and sales compensation management software.
How Automating Sales Commissions Helps More Than Just You
The end of the month just wrapped. You should be celebrating with your sales teams for obliterating monthly targets (in this economy!) over an impromptu happy hour. Instead, you’re in front of your monitor.
Thousands of dollars in commissions— maybe millions even — rest in spreadsheet limbo.
There, this deal data awaits your calculations and cross-checking to ensure accuracy. You tell your reps, who are eager to see how much they made, that it’ll be a week or so before you can show them their commission statements.
The pressure is on.
A single mistake puts your reps’ commission checks at risk, and with it, team morale.
You put on your headphones, turn up your “focus” music, and dive in.
***
Guess what? This isn’t the life you have to live every month. Automation can cut your time spent running commissions at a minimum by 50 percent. Heck, we’ve even seen RevOps folks knock out EOM commissions in a few hours using software compared to 5 full business days when done manually.
We’re not here to sell you QuotaPath (although if interested, we’re always available for a chat). Instead, we hope to open your eyes to the wonderful world of automated commission tracking. Because the benefits go far beyond the time you’ll save.
Below, learn how intuitive sales compensation software can increase calculation accuracy, pay transparency, motivation, and alignment across your teams.
Increase Calculating Commissions Accuracy
Did you know that reps have more trust in a software’s commissions calculations compared to someone inputting the numbers manually?
That’s according to our Sales Compensation Trends survey, and it makes sense.
When you remove the chance of human error, accuracy immediately increases.
Plus, for platforms, such as QuotaPath, that integrate directly with HubSpot and other CRMs, the deal data within the commission tracking tool will reflect exactly what’s in the CRM.
So, as long as reps keep their pipeline freshly updated, accurate compensation per deal should follow.
“When I’m reviewing commissions, I’m checking to see if the deals and fields in HubSpot are correct. Knowing that the data comes from HubSpot is a huge peace of mind. I can trust it,” said Katie Cooper, Muck Rack’s Senior Business Manager of Business and Data Operations.
Note: For QuotaPath users, an added bonus from these integrations, is that reps can actually forecast their commissions as tied to their pipelines. As a result, RevOps leaders who use our platform, have noticed increases in CRM hygiene because reps want to see how new opportunities translate to commissions and toward attainment targets in real-time.
Pay Transparency
“When will our commissions be ready?”
“How much did I make on that huge deal?”
“Do you know how far I am from hitting my accelerator?”
Automated commission platforms with exceptional rep views can make it so that instead of coming to you and payroll for comp questions, they can simply log in. This helps build transparency and understanding around sales comp.
“The whole point of having generous incentives is to energize the team and not have it be mysterious,” said Head of Finance Thomas Egbert, of Prefect.
And, as our Sales Compensation Trends study reported, when reps understand how, what, and when they are paid, their confidence in their commission payouts increase.
Motivate and Align your Teams
The two benefits above lean into our third point.
When reps have a clear understanding of how much they can earn from a given deal, or see how close they are to begin earning a higher commission rate, you’re giving them more reason to bring in the next deal.
For instance, when Blackthorn’s VP of Sales Joe St. Germain added commission tracking to his sales tech stack, his reps quickly took note of their new visibility into earnings and quota attainment.
“Our reps realized they could run scenarios and see how much they could earn from our monthly kickers,” Joe said.
That led to record sales in the months following the implementation of a solution.
Is it Time to Automate?
The benefits are clear, but how do you know if it’s your time to automate the commission process?
Here’s how we think about it.
You’re ready if you:
- Wish there was another way to calculate commissions
- Want to give your reps more visibility into their earnings
- Leverage compensation to motivate selling behaviors
- Already use a CRM to track deal data
- Have plans to add more reps or teams to your growth org.
Do any of those hit home?
If so, think about automating it. We can help you get started. Visit quotapath.com.
About QuotaPath
To learn more about QuotaPath’s sales compensation automation and management software, book a time for a chat. And, don’t forget to check out their free resource, Compensation Hub to guide your comp plan design process. This ungated library includes 20 adjustable free comp plan templates to run and test scenarios. Save a plan in Compensation Hub and see it live in QuotaPath for a free 30-day trial.
Want to learn the blueprint to optimizing revenue?
Download our whitepaper on the 4 levers of revenue growth
