How should I track and pay post frame sales commission?
Track post frame sales commission per sale, with the rep, job, amount and rate, worked out once to the cent, and owed and paid totals that ride on the next pay run. A rate change should apply to new sales only. Our commission ledger can credit the rep when the customer signs, freezes paid commissions, and is kept by admins, read by sales managers and never shown to reps.
- Reps respond to the shape of the plan, not just the rate. At one software firm, reps timed deals and gave bigger discounts to hit an accelerating commission, costing 6 to 8% of revenue. Smooth steps invite less gaming than cliffs. Larkin, 2014 ↗
- Different reps need different pull. Over-quota commission kept top reps selling after they hit target, while quarterly bonuses acted as pacers for reps who were behind. Chung, Steenburgh & Sudhir, 2014 ↗
- A commission nobody can work out yet breeds friction. A construction business author argues for paying on the sale price, because the rep can't see or control job costs, and a profit-based commission can't be finished until the job's real costs are in. Markup & Profit ↗
A commission ledger for the owner and the sales manager, for the reps who sell your post-frame shops and barndominiums. Enter each sale — the rep, the job, the amount and the rate — and it works out the commission exactly, to the cent. Set a rep's usual rate once and it fills itself in — or switch on Credit the rep when the customer signs and a signed contract adds the sale for the rep on the pipeline card by itself. Each rep has a running owed and paid total; what is owed rides on the next pay run and is marked paid when that run is paid. The whole ledger exports to a spreadsheet for your accountant. Admins keep it; sales managers can read it under Accounting → Sales payouts; sales reps never see it.
Also called: commission tracking · commission sheet · sales commissions · rep commissions · what do I owe my reps
Worked out to the cent, the same way every time
Try itMoney is kept in whole cents and rates as exact percentages, and there is one rounding rule — half up to the cent, the way a person with a calculator expects. 4.5% of $41,237.50 is $1,855.69 (the .6875 rounds up), on every screen and in every export. Pick the rep and his usual rate fills in.
Whether $1,855.6875 becomes .68 or .69 depends on which cell rendered it, and the rep notices before the accountant does.
A rep who can check his commission to the cent trusts the person paying it. Somebody's pay should be decided in one place, by one rule, not by whichever screen happened to show it.
Owed and paid, per rep
Try itEach rep carries a running owed and paid total. Mark a commission paid when it goes out; set a rep's usual rate once and new sales pick it up. A rate change applies to new sales only, so a commission already agreed never moves underneath anyone.
Changing a rep's rate in a spreadsheet quietly rewrites every row that formula touches, including the ones already paid.
An agreed number should stay agreed — a rep who sees his rate change underneath him stops believing the sheet. A new rate applies to new sales only, so a commission already agreed never moves.
Credit the rep the moment the customer signs
Try itSwitch on Credit the rep when the customer signs under Sales payouts and a signed contract writes its own ledger row: the rep assigned to the pipeline card, the sale at the estimate's total, the commission at the rep's default rate — their usual rate here, or the commission rate on their pay profile. It happens once per contract, the row says it was credited automatically, and a deal with no rep on its card adds nothing. It's off until an admin turns it on; with it off, sales are added by hand as before.
Without it, a rep's commission is figured by hand after the job closes — the sale has to be found and keyed in before anyone knows what's owed.
The rep's number should exist the day the deal is won, not the day someone gets round to the paperwork. The contract signature is already the moment the sale is real, so that's when the ledger hears about it.
Commission feeds the rep's raise path
Try itA rep's progression journey can count commission brought in or sales closed — read straight from this ledger, voided rows left out. When a step is given, the new rate becomes the rep's usual rate for new sales; commission on sales recorded since the day the step was reached is made up as back pay on the next pay run, so the rows already in the ledger keep the numbers they were agreed at.
A raise promised for hitting a sales number needs someone to add up the number, notice it was hit and remember to change the rate.
A raise tied to sales should follow the sales, not someone's memory of them. One ledger is both what the rep is paid and what moves them up, so the two can't disagree.
Commissions owed ride on the next pay run
Try itWhen you run payroll in Accounting → Payroll, each rep's commissions owed for the period appear on his check as a Commission line. Mark the run paid and those commissions are marked paid in the ledger at the same time — so a commission can't be paid on payroll and still read owed, or forgotten on both.
Commissions are paid by a separate cheque from a separate sheet, and twice a year one gets paid twice or not at all.
A rep paid on time, with his commission on the same check, stops chasing you for it. One run that pays and records means the ledger and the paycheck always agree.
The reps never see it
Admins keep the ledger and sales managers can read it; sales reps cannot open it at all — the request is refused, not just the tab hidden. It sits under Sales payouts in Accounting, next to invoices and crew payouts.
A shared commission sheet is one forwarded link away from every rep comparing numbers.
Reps comparing commissions is a fight you don't need to start. Hiding a tab is decoration; refusing the request on the server is a rule, so the ledger stays between you and your sales manager.
- 1Open Accounting → Sales payouts.
- 2Add a sale: pick the rep, the job and the customer, and enter the sale amount and the rate. A rep's usual rate fills in if you set one.
- 3Or switch on Credit the rep when the customer signs: when a customer signs the contract, the sale is added for the rep assigned to the pipeline card, at the estimate's total and the rep's default rate — once per contract, marked as credited automatically.
- 4The commission is worked out once, in whole cents — 4.5% of $41,237.50 is $1,855.69, every time.
- 5Each rep shows what is owed and what is paid; mark a commission paid when it goes out — or let the pay run do it.
- 6Commissions owed in a pay period show up on that pay run, and paying the run marks them paid.
- 7Commission brought in and sales closed can count toward a rep's progression journey; a commission raise given there becomes the rep's usual rate for new sales.
- 8A paid commission's numbers are frozen — to change them you mark it owed again first. Paid commissions can be voided, never deleted.
- 9Export the ledger to a spreadsheet for your accountant.
Commissions were living in a spreadsheet next to the software, where a formula can be overwritten, a row can be changed after it was paid, and the sheet is one share-link away from the whole sales team. This is somebody's pay, so the arithmetic is done once, in whole cents, with one rounding rule an accountant can reproduce. A rate change applies to new sales only — changing a rep's usual rate never reprices a sale already in the ledger — and a paid commission's numbers are frozen: to change them you mark it owed again first, and it can be voided but never deleted. The reps are kept out by the server, not just by a hidden tab.
- Commission tracking in a spreadsheet anyone can edit
- Rounding disagreements between the sheet and the accountant
- A paid commission's numbers changing by accident
