In our guide “8 Questions to Ask When Choosing Commission Software”, we discuss best practices for how to select a commission automation platform that works for your business. But what happens after that? Choosing the solution is usually the easy part, actually implementing the new platform requires planning, organization, and consistent communication with not only your new vendor, but your leadership team and employees.
In this article, we’ll break down a comprehensive checklist for how to roll out a new commission platform to ensure the transition is seamless.
1. Communicate Implementation Plan with Staff
The first step after choosing your commission automation platform is to start communicating the news of this transition to your team. We recommend doing this as a phased communication plan. You will want your team members who will be using the system the most to be involved with this transition as early as possible. Typically, this would include administrators who will have full access to the system, followed by managers and supervisors who will utilize the platform for managing their direct reports, and then finally your employees that will be using the system primarily to view pay statements and track attainment goals.
Transitioning to a new platform can be overwhelming to team members as they will have to learn how to navigate the new system. Giving as much notice as possible, as well as providing relevant training resources (which we describe in more detail below), will help lessen any potential internal conflicts during this period.
2. Gather Your Data & Communicate Your Commission Plan Details
Think about where all of your business data lives. Make a list of all the data that you use when it comes time to calculate your incentive pay, where that data comes from, and who, if anyone, is responsible for providing it. Recruit as many other team members as needed and start pulling records from these sources. At Core, our data request includes:
- Commission plan descriptions: Documents provided to sales staff describing the incentives they are eligible for.
- Sample data: Set of records from each data source needed for calculations, including: transaction data, reference tables, assignment updates, etc.
- Calculation steps and formulas: The details used to produce commission payouts. If spreadsheets are your current method for calculating payments, the spreadsheet used for the most recent cycle is a great starting point.
- Payment Report samples: Any type of report that you are generating to show payment details to share with sales staff and management will help us in building customized reports for this.
- Performance Report Samples: Similarly, if you distribute any other types of reports such as a quota attainment, send over samples of these for our team to replicate.
- Sales staff information: Any information on your managers, positions and teams (or other organization groupings) for each salesperson that is pertinent to processing your commission payments will be needed to make sure that the accounts are set up correctly.
3. Audit Your Data
When implementing a new software, you want to make sure that you are starting with accurate data. If your previous system had any errors, or if the spreadsheets that you were using had incorrect formulas, now is the time to correct those errors. This is often one of the more time-consuming aspects of implementing a new system as it may take time for you and your team to validate your company’s data for accuracy. Trust us though – this step is worth it! It becomes much more tedious to identify potential problems in the data after the fact.
4. System Customization
While your implementation team works to input all of the data that you have provided, this is your opportunity to request system customizations to streamline your commission management processes even further. Core’s customization options include: custom-built reports, integrations with relevant applications, automated workflows, white-labeling, and more. At Core, we want you to feel like the system was built just for you, so if there’s anything that needs adjusting to fit your unique needs, we’re happy to accommodate. Our system is extremely flexible and allows us to customize just about everything you see.
5. Train Your team
Depending on how much functionality a given team member will have in the system, you’ll want to make sure that you arrange for proper training. Again, for those team members who will act as administrators and will have full access to the system, a formal training may be required. For team members that only need basic features, like managers and employees, usually how-to guides and supporting documentation is sufficient. Core has a comprehensive online knowledge base just for this that can be shared with your team.
Additionally, you will want to make sure that you plan ahead for any questions or concerns that they have. At this point, you should decide on an internal contact that your employees can reach out to when they have questions on the system. As with the adoption of any new system, there will be a bit of a learning curve for both you, your managers, and your employees. Exercise patience and try to plan ahead by having a central location with resources and support that can be available to team members that may need help.
Track & Measure the Success of Each Sales Territory
With Core, you can expect the implementation process to be efficient and seamless. Our team works quickly to get your account setup and customized exactly to your unique requirements. We know how much easier Core’s platform will make your commission management processes, so we work hard to get you up and running as fast as possible.
Schedule a demo to get a complete tour of our full-suite of AI-powered commission management tools, or purchase a Quick Start to immediately start automating your commission management processes.