When handling sales teams, the ability to cut the clutter is paramount. Sales teams are often inundated with overflowing data – from potential clients, sales reps meet to the deals they make or lose; expenses to commissions; locations to time; incentive plans to commission calculations, etc.
In the face of such overwhelming data, it is important to have the tools that allow teams to crunch numbers against the correct parameters. While managing and tracking sales reps’ commissions, it helps to have one repository of all the relevant information. Gone are the days when spreadsheets were the panacea for such maladies. Manual calculations done on paper or maintained on personal devices are even worse.
The need of the hour is a commission management platform that helps you set up a customized dashboard as a central location for all data. Flexibility in creating unique dashboards for any user or sales rep helps turn your commission management software into highly effective performance tracking hubs. It can also be used for various other purposes, including reporting and analysis, payroll processing, budgeting, forecasting, etc.
How to determine whether you need a dashboard to manage sales commissions
Dashboards can offer a lot of freedom and flexibility. It could free managers from having to sift through heaps of data to pick what they need in a few clicks. However, dashboards may not be a must-have for every company. Here are a few questions you must answer before using dashboards:
- Q1: Are your commission and incentive plans varied and complex?
- Q2: Are you struggling to understand whether the commissions have the desired effect on productivity and morale?
- Q3: Are your commission payment and calculation processes error-prone?
- Q4: Do you regularly develop new incentive plans and statutory bonuses for the sales staff?
- Q5: Are there conflicts and doubts from the sales reps that need resolution?
If your answers are yes, then you need a dashboard!
Here’s how a commission management dashboard can help streamline work:
1. Keeping an eye on commissions:
The ability to track and understand where your sales staff and the team stand is important to understand the overall performance and budgets. The dashboard can offer details for the current cycle and help you compare them against previous cycles.
Details on performance vs. targets, current performance vs. previous performance, etc., can also offer valuable and actionable insights to the sales rep and the management.
2. Keeping an eye on trends:
Performance and buying trends help draft better sales commission plans and motivate your staff. In sales, various factors such as seasonality, inflation, recession, salary dates, quarterly budget announcements, etc., influence the decisions made by buyers and companies. Access to such historical data can give you a clear view of how to manage such situations in the future.
Sales management dashboards can empower teams with regular reports over flexible periods to help effectively plan, manage, and execute deals. In turn, it can help companies prepare better.
3. Keeping an eye on revenue:
Knowing how much revenue remains in the bag and how it can be used to push your sales team further is a recipe for success. Sales commissions are directly proportional to revenue – each closed deal pours more revenue into the coffers, and every failure means lesser money.
Stay organized and productive with the dashboards your sales team needs
Sales dashboards can offer a transparent view of the commissions made, the sales deals about to be closed, and the amount of money remaining to plan for the future. This gives the management greater latitude while altering plans or making provisions for future events.
Allow your sales directors and managers to make strategic decisions while sales reps are able to see their overall commissions and performance. And remember, an accurate, data-driven, easy-to-understand sales dashboard is an essential tool for all sales teams.
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