Success story
San Francisco, California
1001-2000
Technology
Chargebee provides a subscription management and recurring billing system for SaaS and e-commerce businesses.
Before Everstage, Chargebee’s Operations team would run commissions manually for hundreds of reps based out of 5 regions. The process started with gathering data required from multiple sources to calculate commissions, compiling and modifying them on spreadsheets. Hours were spent making sure that the right data was collected for calculations.
Each commission plan had a minimum of 4 components with different quota categories. After calculating commissions, the data would then be shared with sales reps to review their payouts.
The first week of the month or quarter was mayhem for administrators and sales reps alike. It became an overwhelming process for admins as they did no other tasks except commissions busywork that week. They barely had time to complete this process from start to finish as there was a tight deadline with Finance to send over the final numbers. Reps had to manually validate in less than 3 days.
The administrators would get buried under requests for calls from reps during the review time. Reps were convinced that their payouts were accurately calculated only when explained over a call.
“Once we rolled out payouts, my calendar would be packed with back-to-back calls just to explain how commissions were calculated. We had to work multiple shifts to accommodate calls from three geographies.”
Another challenge that Chargebee had was commission contract management. With new hires every month, frequent promotions, and role changes, the organisation used a third-party app to share contract documents with sales reps.
However, administrators did not have any control over the process. There was no visibility whatsoever on whether the variable pay stated in the contracts were correct. There was no way to know if the reps read through and signed their contracts.
Since the Operations team had to dedicate the first week of every month entirely to manual commissions processing, Chargebee decided it was time for a change. They were looking for an incentive compensation management solution that would automate the commissions calculations, improve accuracy, and reduce time taken to pay out. Additionally, the solution should also be providing transparency to reps, and reducing disputes about commissions.
Given the complexity of commission plans and the volume of data, Everstage’s seamless and intuitive interface automates Chargebee’s entire commission lifecycle.
As all calculations are run by the system and not manually, sales teams get enough time to review their commission numbers and get back to the administrators with any doubts. With an intuitive dashboard and detailed statements of their earnings, sales reps have transparency into the pay which has reduced questions to admins by over 95%.
“Partnering with Everstage has been amazing! Their focus on providing a complete tool that meets our requirements of end-to-end visibility and ownership of the entire commissions process has been outstanding.”
With Everstage’s DocuSign integration, rolling out commission contracts is now a breeze. Chargebee not only saved money by eliminating the third-party app but also reduced internal effort to coordinate and provide accurate plan statements. Admins gained more control over the accuracy, and timely transfer of contracts to multiple sales teams at the same time. Sales reps can view their compensation plan within Everstage to understand how they got paid.
All things commissions are done and dusted within the first few days of the month systematically. Administrators can stick to their timeframe of paying out commissions within the first week of the month or quarter. All the manual work is automated and admins only need to handle exceptions to the process. The entire process was smooth sailing, therefore saving administrators and reps from a week full of chaos.
Administrators can now focus on other responsibilities and give sales reps enough review time to address any doubts they might have. Sales reps are also confident about their payouts as the commission calculations are accessible to them at all times.
“The effort we take to get the commissions rolled out in the first two weeks has come down phenomenally. Before Everstage, we wouldn’t even be able to take a day off during payouts. Now, I am very confident about rolling payouts in the set time frame with Everstage.”
Administrators spend a maximum of 45 minutes to send out contracts for over 300 sales reps. They can also track signatures and ensure that sales reps have complete visibility every month on how they got paid. This feature made contract signing for new hires completely seamless and error-free.
Administrators spend less time clarifying compensation plans and payouts. Queries have also significantly reduced as sales teams get visibility of their compensation plan components.
“Contracts on Everstage increase our communication with sales teams on their compensation plan components, changes in their variable pay etc. We don’t get many queries as they can view the plan document and align it with Everstage’s detailed earning statements.”
