How to build Tiers and Accelerators in CloudComp for Salesforce

When designed properly, sales accelerators encourage sellers to hit and exceed their goals, and they help boost payouts for high performers while limiting pay for low performers. 

The results of well-designed Tiers and Accelerators are individual pay outcomes and overall sales compensation expenses that are competitive with the market.

Without accelerators in place, goals or quotas can have far less financial impact on sales reps than intended, meaning your company runs the risk of underpaying high performers and overpaying low performers. 

Tiers and Accelerators are are quick and easy to build and manage in CloudComp Commission Anything! And best of all, if you know how to use CloudComp, you can do it yourself on your own time, right in your own Salesforce Org!

In CloudComp Compensation Plans, each row is called a "Compensation Plan Tier". The Plan Tiers take a number of arguments including "Attainment Base" and "Attainment Top" which enable setting percentages of Quota Target to define Attainment-based Tiers or Accelerators, "Quota Type" which enables associating the CloudComp Quota records that will deliver the Attainment Percentages and "Revenue Type" which controls the records that can qualify for the Plan Tier.

The Compensation Plan below is a "Team-based" Plan using monthly targets, meaning that a manager who is assigned to the compensation plan will receive her base and accelerator commissions according to the production of her sales team against her Quota Target during each month. Any Plan Tier in CloudComp can be Individual or Team-based according to the Quota Type declared for the Tier. So you can easily mix and match Individual and Team-based Tiers and Accelerators on the same CloudComp Compensation Plan.

When CloudComp generates commissions for our manager Stacy, it uses the Attainment Percentage from her Quota (of the Quota Type declared for the Plan Tier) to process the Attainment-based Tiers. This enables any number of Sales Reps to be assigned to the same Compensation Plan with different sales targets for the same fiscal period (month quarter or year). This also enables you to set different targets by fiscal period for the same user, thereby supporting ramping, seasonal differences in sales volume, etc.

Because each Plan Tier is processed individually by CloudComp, only the sales that meet the exact criteria for each Tier are qualified for commissions. Note in the screenshot below, that though Stacy Owen's Team exceeded 100% of her Quota Target for the month of October, thereby activating the Accelerators for the App Subscriptions and Support products, the Training product sales did not qualify for the >100% Attainment Accelerator. 

Why did the training product sales not qualify for the >100% Attainment Accelerator? It is because the Accelerator Tiers on this Compensation Plan are activated via date-time sequence. Though the overall Team-based Quota Attainment exceeded 100% of target during the month, the Training product sales occurred prior to the date-time of 100% achievement of Target. A Period-based calculation method is also supported as an alternative to date-time sequence and Plan Tiers can be set to be Retroactive as well so that they pay out commissions on existing records when the Attainment Base of the Plan Tier is achieved.

Please feel free to Contact Surfwriter today if you have questions about how CloudComp Commission Anything can automate your Tiers and Accelerators or you would like to see a demo of CloudComp in action. 

Good luck with your commissions automation project!

How to Automate Sales Commissions in Salesforce: Start with good Sales Data!

Do you want to automate your sales commissions in Salesforce? 

In our experience, the most overlooked aspect of sales commission automation projects, is the sales data that constitutes the "basis for commissions". What do we mean by the "basis for commissions"? 

Consider these 3 key components of sales commissions:

1. Sales data
2. Commission rules
3. Commission results

The process of calculating commissions goes like this: For each instance of a row of  commissionable sales data (#1),  one or many commission rules (#2), will be applied to produce commission results (#3).

So the sales data (#1), is obviously the foundation of the commissions calculation process right? It is literally impossible to process commission rules (#2) and generate commission results (#3) without the correct sales data (#1).

OK, then why is it that so many companies seem to begin commissions automation projects without getting their sales data right for the project first? Perhaps it's just because many people haven't ever managed a sales commissions automation project before. 

So how can you avoid this pitfall and get your sales data right for your sales commissions project before you try to automate it? 

Think about it this way:  Start by imagining a simple commission example. Let's say that for each closed/won Opportunity (#1 basis), our sales rep, Julie, earns a 10% commission on the amount at close date of opportunities she owns (#2 rules), So if Julie is the owner, the Opportunity amount is $10k and the close date is 2/18/22, then Julie will earn a commission of $1,000.00 during the February '22 pay period which she will receive during march when February payments are made (#3 commission results). 

So if we look at #2 (commission rules), we can see precisely what we need in our sales data. We need to be able to report out closed/won opportunity amounts, by owner and close date. Simple right? Of course! Remember, this was our simple example... Now here's the problem. What if there's another little commission rule hiding behind the scenes (#2), which states that Julie only earns her commission when the closed/won Opportunity amount is actually paid by the customer?

Now if you repeat the same approach you will quickly identify that in order for your sales data (#1), to be a sufficient basis for the new commission rule (#2) requiring sales to be paid by the customer prior to generating commissions, then you can hopefully see for yourself now that each row of sales data (#1) must now represent the amount that was paid, not the amount that was closed/won. 

Another example would be a commission rule which states that Julie gets a higher commission rate on "new logo" sales over "renewal" sales. Can you see where this is going this time? It means that now every row of sales data will need to contain an attribute to distinguish "new logo" from "renewal". 

So the moral of this story is this: To get your sales data right for a commissions automation project, you should confirm that each condition being called out in your commission rules such as "ARR" "closed/won", "amount paid", "margin", "new logo" etc. can be mapped to attributes that are included within your sales data. Then you'll be ready to implement a commissions automation tool such as our CloudComp Commission Anything™ for Salesforce App to process your rules against your sales data and generate your commissions and payment results.

Remember this simple 1-2-3 of sales commissions automation! If you understand these principals, then you're likely to save a lot of time and expense on your commissions automation project! 

Good luck with your project and feel free to Contact Surfwriter if you would like more information on our sales commission automation tools and implementation services for Salesforce.

CloudComp Commission Anything App for Salesforce (Video)

CloudComp Commission Anything will enable you to rapidly configure Quotas, Commissions, Accelerators and Payments using any of your standard or custom objects and fields with clicks not code.

CloudComp Commission Anything will enable you to rapidly configure Quotas, Commissions, Accelerators and Payments using any of your standard or custom objects and fields with clicks not code. All data is accessible via Standard Salesforce reports and dashboards. CloudComp is 100% compatible with Salesforce Object and Field security and is Salesforce Mobile Ready.

Configure and Run Quotas and Commissions in CloudComp (video)

This 6 minute training video demonstrates setting up Quotas, a Compensation Plan with an Accelerator and Running Commissions in CloudComp Commission Anything from start to finish.

CloudComp is a 100% Native Salesforce, Certified Enterprise Incentive Compensation App which provides click-to-configure setup for Standard and Custom Objects and Fields and supports Multi-Quota, Mult-Plan, Multi-Tier and Multi-Currency Compensation. All data is accessible via Standard Salesforce reports and dashboards. CloudComp is 100% compatible with Salesforce Object and Field security. CloudComp Payments easily export with your back office systems or Payroll Service provider.