Creating a Streamlined & Accurate Incentive Compensation Planning Process
The Situation
A large company specializing in home building and sales needed a faster and more accurate way to plan and calculate commission payments for their sales force, numbering in the hundreds of individuals. The Company also client required a detailed and auditable approval workflow to track and verify these payment calculations. Accordion was engaged to develop a more streamlined approach to their commission planning process using Anaplan.
Services
Budgeting & Forecasting Solution Implementation
Reporting & Analytics
The Execution
- Worked closely with the organization’s Finance teams to develop a framework that would address the needs of the solution.
- Developed integration processes to ingest roster and house sale data into Anaplan daily, as well as processes to export the calculated commission values out to the client’s payroll systems.
- Developed several inputs and assumption driver variables at the region, home, and employee level to allow for planners to make detailed commissions calculations.
- Calculated commissions calculations at the home and employee level in real time, allowing for accurate payments for every two-week payment cycle.
- Calculated pending commission accrual values, which were connected to the Company’s Accounting team.
- Developed a detailed commission approval workflow and audit process to track all changes and overrides to commissions — all Anaplan-based inputs and overrides require an audit trail of who and when the change was made, as well as approval by a reviewer, before being incorporated into the commission calculation.
The Results
Accordion successfully implemented an Anaplan model that accurately calculates the projected commission payments for several hundred sales employees at a faster speed than the Company’s previous system, enabling the payment of these commission values faster than before. The detailed audit and approval workflow process developed in Anaplan also allows for a more accountable process for the client team.