Here’s what one of our prospects told us in a demo call:
We have no transparency regarding the approval process. We tag finance people in spreadsheets where payment is needed.
The process is very slow. There is back-and-forth in sending reminders, and it all gets lost in email threads.
Sometimes, the finance team makes a payment but doesn’t update the sheet.
Consequently, there is a delay in payouts, and the work is hectic for me (a RevOps admin).
Approvals before payouts are to check if the commission calculations are correct and the data used is accurate. Going through multiple stages of approvals before paying sales reps is a common practice among businesses for financial control. Currently most companies do it via emails and spreadsheets.
However, getting timely approvals from multiple stakeholders is a problem. And doing it via emails and spreadsheets is a bigger problem.
If you are trying to make it efficient and less time-consuming, read on!
Common problems with having an approval process for commission payout using emails and spreadsheets:
The common issues in getting approvals for payouts:
- It is inefficient with manual monotonous work
- Lack of transparency among the stakeholders making them less accountable
- Difficult to scale it when the organization grows with more people or teams
Read: Effective sales commission management
So, what is the solution for a fast and transparent approval process?
Imagine being able to do this:
- Setting up an approval workflow in a hierarchical order
- Automating reminders for people who are lacking behind
- Checking the approval flow status and knowing what is stuck where
Sounds good?
It gets better than this.
You can automate calculations for all your reps using our sales commission software. When it’s time for payouts, the software freezes the commissions and generates statements on a specified date. These statements then undergo an approval process to move to payouts.
Read: When should you pay sales commissions?
ElevateHQ allows you to create different approval workflows for different plans or have one workflow for all. You can also choose the employees you want to be in a workflow. For instance, you leave out specific employees out of the approval workflow.
Let’s dive deep into how you can have a streamlined approval process for commissions:
Easily set up a workflow between different departments
You can build an approval workflow between different people from different departments and set up stages to ensure accountability. Only when people in stage one approve will it move to the next stage.
Here’s what it looks like:
You can customize the number of stages and who should approve each stage.
Automate reminders and get work done
Instead of checking and reminding manually, you can set up automated reminders that nudge users to complete the task. If you don’t wish to automate reminders, you can also manually trigger reminders from the software.
Check approval status in real-time
Once you set up the commission approval workflow, you can see who has completed them and who has not under “Approvals.” You can filter and view by status, such as approved, pending, declined, and more.
We told you it gets better.
Configure to automatically approve specific statements
You can automate approvals for specific statements based on the commission amount. For instance, any commission statement with a value of zero will automatically get approved and move to payouts.
You can set up a value and enable or disable the approval automation anytime.
Update with the latest statement in the middle of a workflow
Let’s say there’s been a change with a commission deal and its amount, and you want to process the latest statement. You can unfreeze that commission, refresh and freeze again. Doing this will record that there’s been a reset and ask the users in all stages to sign the approval.
Admins can also invalidate a statement if something is wrong. Let’s say the amount is wrong, and your rep raised a query. You can invalidate the existing approval, unfreeze the commission, make the necessary changes, and freeze it. This will create a new approval.
Users who are admins can override any stage and approve.
Check approval history
Every time a record is added to approvals, it shows a snapshot of the commission amount and its breakdown by plan. When a change is made and frozen again, a new record is added with a snapshot of its breakdown. This way, you will see what changed when there was a reset.
You can also have an approval workflow for
Quotas: Set up target quotas for users and get approvals from them and their reporting managers.
Adjustments: Make adjustments to the commission value and get it approved.
Custom objects: Any customer object that reps/users create goes through an approval workflow.
Setting approval workflow for the above is similar to that of commission approval workflow.
But if you are not ready to move to commission software right now, it’s okay. We can still help.
Best practices to follow if you run approvals through spreadsheets and emails
Here are some tips that can help you:
- Use a clear versioning system to track changes and maintain an audit trail. Naming conventions such as "CommissionApproval_YYYYMMDD_v1" can help.
- Use version control tools or platforms (like Google Sheets or OneDrive) that automatically save and track changes.
- Standardize the dates for commission calculations and approvals to ensure consistency.
- Develop clear guidelines and procedures for how the approval process should be handled, including timelines and responsibilities.
- Schedule emails to follow up and demand a response when an email is sent.
Opt for an efficient commission approval workflow with ElevateHQ
Using commission management software let’s you automate commission calculation and also take care of the approval process in one place. And doing it in one place makes the process quicker, streamlined, and transparent.
Moreover, you can integrate your invoicing software with ElevateHQ and make payments for more synchronized commission management.
If you want to know more about how we simplify commission management, feel free to talk to one of our representatives.
