QCommission

Avantages

The program allowed me to:
- Gave my brokers and sales reps access to an online portal to view their statements ' past and present ' at their convenience.
- Supplied professional looking statements (v.s. the Excel spreadsheet snippets I was using previously as a statement) to provide to my brokers, improving our company's image and professionalism.
- Consolidated a three week, multiple spreadsheet operation into a three day one spreadsheet upload process.
- Easily track and access data for past transactions (v.s. searching through multiple spreadsheets and creating an annual tracking spreadsheet for research purposes).
- Combine all my different commission types paid from separate companies onto one statement for each payee.
- Save a ton of time with a 'one click' mass emailing feature to email out statements to all my brokers and sales reps (previous process this took ½ a day to send individual emails to each payee).

Inconvénients

Opportunity for improvement:
- System not available through an online program/ portal and must be accessed via Remote Desktop.
- Software runs a bit sluggishly and crashes periodically (without any data loss).
- IT/ Development team has no external system for tracking open tickets and I had to find my own work around to be sure my tickets were being followed up on (I used Trello for this).
- Remote Server uses a free-ware version of MS Office that I find not so user friendly.
- One must be very computer/ software savvy to use this program as it is not very user friendly, is extremely fastidious with how data must be entered, user guides and not helpful, and reports are not logically set up for the industry standards.
- Had to analyze and design all my own checks and balances and have reports custom built to meet my requirements (custom reports require an extra charge $).

Avantages

Our Company uses QCommission with QuickBooks Enterprise to calculate and report sales commission for our sales and account management team. This versatile web-based tool has allowed us to implement a commission plan that is free of the burdens of a manual process. The QCommission Team worked closely with us to help implement and test the system prior to putting it into active production. This tool integrates well with QuickBooks to allow our Company to accurately calculate and pay commission. We are able to pay and report commissions timely, provide visibility to management and payees through the reporting capabilities and complete the process with substantially less effort. The tool has the ability to manage commission plans that range from the simple to the complex, allowing for changes as a company's needs changes. The QCommission Support Team is responsive and has always helped resolve any issues or address questions. I would strongly recommend this tool for any company seeking to efficiently and effectively manage a commission program.

Pros

Versatile web-based
Integrates well with QuickBooks
Can manage commission plans that range from the simple to the complex
Good analytics and reporting
Cost effective

Inconvénients

Can require support for material plan changes
Web-based tool takes time to adapt to
A more intuitive web interface would be helpful

Avantages

It has been an immense time savings to our company. With paying near 1,000 payees with over 60 different comp plans, this flexible solution has been extremely helpful in tracking payee movement, incentives, and audit trails. Not to mention, the support team's customer service is second to none. For the low price of the system, we've already seen a return on investment in our eyes.

Inconvénients

One must be very detailed when going thru the requirements of the software with the implementation team, and if adding enhancements going forward as well.

Avantages

- The ability to use the data integration module to import bulk data templates from insurance carriers
- Automated calculations of commission splits
- Easy to edit splits and payees
- The custom report that tracks the premium periods of commissions paid
- The customer service that comes with the software

Inconvénients

- Initially, I found the software to be tricky to use. The data integration error codes often do not explain in basic language how to rectify the problems. Once I used the software for a few months though, it became second nature to understand what they meant.
- The standard reports are far too much information. I no longer use the reports out of QCommission - I export data to Excel and create pivot tables that summarize multiple rows of transactions for a given customer and product into one number. It is a much more logical commission statement than seeing every single $0.05 adjusting transaction from the carriers on it's own row.

Avantages

We were initially surprised that QCommission could handle our complicated multi-tier commission program but the people at QCommission told us it would be no problem. During the configuration phase we communicated with our QC project manager several times a week. Once the implementation period started, we threw a few additional requests their way which they were able to do without any problem. Our office manager and I were continually surprised that they were able to automate what was for us a time-consuming process which involved pen, paper, spreadsheets and color-coded stamps. This program has reduced our commission activities to a fraction of the time we used to spend on it. QCommission has helped our efficiency and we didn't need to break our budget to do it.

Inconvénients

Honestly, we are fairly new users of QCommission and haven't encountered any notable "cons" yet. Our project manager and the QC support people have been very responsive so far so I'm confident that any trouble we may encounter down the road will be handled quickly and efficiently.