Method and apparatus for determining commission

Abstract

The invention provides for a method and apparatus for determining the commission to be paid to a sales representative or sales team. Whenever a sale occurs, a Transaction describing the sale is created and inputted into the Commission system of one embodiment of the invention. Based on a set of Allocation Rules that specify the credit an individual is to receive from a Transaction, the Transactions are converted into several Allocations for individual Sales Representatives or Sales Teams. One or more Quotas specify a target or goal that must be reached to earn commission for each Sales Team. A Quota State indicates the current performance of a Sales Representative with respect to a particular Quota wihtin a particular time frame. The Quotas are used to convert the Allocations / Transactions into Quota Details that specify how to increment or decrement the Quota State. A Promotion specifies the reward or commission that is received upon attaining a desired level of performance. Once a Quota State reaches a level necessary to receive a Commission or reward as set by a specific Promotion, a ledger item indicating the amount to be paid to particular Sales Team is created. A user interface may be used to create Allocation Rules, Quotas, and Promotions that are awarded for performance over a specified time period. In this manner, a business may set up incentive plans and determine commissions easily and accurately.

Description

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention[0002] This invention relates to the field of determining the sales commission provided to sales teams and representatives.[0003] Portions of the disclosure of this patent document contain material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. 2. BACKGROUND ART[0004] In modern business environments, it is commonplace to employ sales representatives to market the goods and services offered for sale. Sales representatives receive compensation based on a salary, the hours worked, and / or on the goods or services sold. When basing compensation on the goods or services sold, sales representatives receive a commission that can be based on profits, net sales, the number of products sold, or some other variable.[0005] To p...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

"The invention is a method and apparatus for determining the sales commission to be paid to sales representatives or sales teams. It allows for quick and accurate communication of incentive plans to sales representatives and allows flexibility to adjust the incentive plan as needed in a rapidly changing environment. The system converts transactions into allocations for individual sales representatives or sales teams and uses quotas to determine the current performance of sales representatives and adjust the quota state accordingly. This invention addresses the challenges of creating and distributing incentive plans and ensuring that they are accurate and effective."

Problems solved by technology

Figuring out who should be apportioned credit for a sale can be complex and difficult to administer.

The increasing use of sales teams, account territory, and product managers has further complicated the management of sales crediting.

The management of a business can spend a great deal of time and money in developing incentive plans.

In the prior art, the creation and distribution of incentive plans is a slow process that is prone to error.

Mistakes in the calculations can often be made at headquarters requiring a repetition of the entire process.

Often the sales representatives do not receive a copy of the plan prior to making sales.

Such a delay defeats the underlying purpose of an incentive plan to promote the sale of particular products or services (i.e., the sales representative does not know what products or services the sales organization desires to promote).

Competitive companies cannot afford being obligated to adhere to a static information infrastructure or a slow incentive plan process that cannot keep up with a rapidly changing business environment.

However, the traditional system is costly when trying to represent a quickly changing business environment like that of a sales organization, which role is to constantly change and to evolve to align itself to changing customer needs, market changes, sales channels and internal business initiatives.

Retailers are often not permitted to modify or create their own incentive plans for the sales representatives.

In addition, the ability to view and organize information regarding sales transactions is unavailable or difficult in the prior art.

Thus, retailers cannot easily observe statistics such as the products or services that are selling quickly, which sales teams or representatives are selling the most, the average cost a particular product is being sold for, etc.

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