The Challenge
Hood Container Corporation, a leading player in the packaging and containers manufacturing industry, faced a significant operational challenge in managing commissions across its expansive and complex sales organization.
Hood Container currently manages data for each of its plants with their own individual databases. Without a centralized data warehouse, managing the compensation plans is an overwhelming manual process for the team.
Each plant controller was responsible for processing data for their respective plants, often spending anywhere from two to ten hours per sales rep, depending on data complexity and system errors. James Allison, the Business Analyst overseeing the compensation process, described this Excel-based workflow as highly error-prone and inefficient.
As the company expanded and added new sales reps, the limitations of the manual process became glaring. There was no high-level visibility across plans, no real-time insights for reps, and version control issues with spreadsheets. Hood Container needed a scalable, efficient, and error-free alternative that would modernize how commissions were managed, calculated, and reviewed.
The Solution
Hood Container selected Everstage after evaluating several vendors due to its flexibility, total cost of ownership, and ability to operate without real-time integrations – a crucial factor given the distributed databases at the time.
Automated and error-free calculations
Hood Container was able to automate its entire commission process, replacing spreadsheets with a unified and scalable system using Everstage. Once the Everstage team received sample calculations, the platform was configured within a month and tested thoroughly with historical data.
Role based access to Dashboards
Hood Container customized dashboards for different user tiers to ensure role-specific visibility and analytics. The Sales reps could view commission breakdowns, product trends, AR aging, and multi-plant sales in one dashboard. Managers get rolled-up reports by rep, including sales trends and open AR. The Payroll Admin has a dedicated audit dashboard to ensure payment accuracy and data integrity.
Visibility and engagement through Statements and Queries
Everstage’s detailed earning statements and in-platform query features drastically improved rep engagement. Reps can now review their pay details without needing Excel expertise, leading to more informed and confident teams.
The Result
Hood Container now sees remarkable improvements in efficiency, accuracy, and team engagement with Everstage.
Hundreds of hours saved monthly
Everstage eliminated the need for plant level controllers to process commissions. What previously took 8-10 hours per rep for every plant now takes just minutes with batch uploads. This massive time-saving allowed plant controllers to refocus on core responsibilities and reduced payroll bottlenecks dramatically.
Elimination of overpayments and reduced compliance risks
Everstage’s structured logic caught and prevented overpayments caused by Excel miscalculations, including duplicate commissions from transfer deals. Having a centralized and audit-friendly system also reduced compliance risks and ensured accurate payouts for all reps.
Higher sales rep engagement and faster cash recovery
By switching from a “sell-based” to a “pay-when-paid” commission model, reps now see the direct impact of Accounts Receivable delays on their payouts. Everstage dashboards help them track outstanding AR and follow up with customers proactively.
Additionally, this level of engagement has motivated reps to track trends and proactively manage their pipeline, leading to improved performance and better alignment with business goals.
White-glove support and domain expertise
Moving to a digital system felt very easy and natural for Hood Container due to Everstage’s hands-on professional services. The team also works closely with James on refining existing plans and building new logics.
