As a financial adviser, there’s a good chance commission management is the bane of your existence, or at least a headache for someone in your practice.
You likely have your hands full advising your current clients, onboarding new clients, reassessing financial goals and portfolios and making changes as needed. This leaves very little time for effective tracking and management of your commissions.
How do you keep track of your ever-expanding commission management fees while maintaining the standard of service your clients have come to expect from you?
Trying to do it all yourself via spreadsheets and columns is a recipe for a headache and lots of bottomless coffee.
There’s a better way to stay on top of your commissions as your business scales. Today we’ll be taking a closer look at the benefits of commission management software for IFAs.
What is Commission Management Software?
Commission management software is a management solution that helps financial advisers track and manage the ongoing status of their various commission streams earned from their advisory services from a single interface.
Why automate the sales commission process?
Without any assistance from commission management software, advisers can end up spending hours of their time manually tracking and updating their commissions.
This process is time-consuming and inefficient and can lead to errors that impact the end value of your commission rates.
For an advisory business, calculating and updating commission recordings can distract your sales team from their primary focus which is bringing in new clients and increasing business revenue.
By automating the sales commission process, commission management software, advisers can seamlessly keep track of their commission and:
- Boost accuracy of commission and fee calculations.
- Improve timeliness of commission payments.
- Enhance commission transparency.
- Save advisers’ time, allowing them to focus on other business concerns.
- Scale with ease and onboard new clients without adding to their existing workload.
Typical features of commission software
The commission management software you opt for your business should be doing more than tracking the status of your commissions.
It should be an invaluable business tool that helps you to grow your business through data-driven insight and analytics, accessible from any location and continuously updated in real-time.
Here are a few typical features of an exceptional commission tracking software solution:
Reporting
Your commission software should be doing the heavy lifting of all your reporting needs, freeing you from manually typing up monthly or quarterly reports.
It should be capable of offering reports with pre-defined touchpoints, customisable reporting and report templates.
Data visualisation and analytics
Any management software worth its weight should be offering visual analytics and data representation, allowing you to:
- Get an end-to-end view of your commission streams from the same place
- Identify areas for improvement
- Pinpoint unusual spikes or dips in incoming revenue and
- Develop responsive strategies and plans of action
Cloud-based capabilities
Financial advisers tend to work from multiple locations, or even working remotely, depending on their work schedules and often don’t have a fixed, singular work point.
For this reason, it’s vital to have a commission management tool on your side that’s cloud-based, allowing you to access it from anywhere in the world.
Security and back-ups
No one wants to have a data breach on their hands – it can destroy a business’s reputation and it will be near impossible to win back clients’ trust.
Consider what security measures and protocols your tool offers before committing to it. Some robust security features to watch out for include:
- Multiple layers of physical, biometric and software-based security protocols and encryption.
- Regular external security audits.
- Daily database backups.
Access control
If you run an advisory business and employ multiple people who all access your management solution, you’ll likely want to restrict visibility on certain dashboards and datasets.
Your tool should provide access control allowing you to limit and permit access and visibility according to your requirements.
Integration
Make sure your commission management software can integrate with and talk to your existing tech stack.
Your management tool should be able to integrate with leading industry-specific CRM tools and offer API functionality for third party integrations and data sharing.
User support
An excellent commission management solution should offer user support as one of its core features. If you need assistance with or have a query about your tool, it should offer several communication and support resolution options like:
- Live chat
- Telephone
- Remote screen sharing capabilities
We should mention here that Commspace offers all these capabilities and more to make managing multiple client accounts and revenue streams a seamless, automated process.
FAQs on commission management software
How do you keep track of commissions?
Using commission software, you no longer need to track and update your commission and fees manually. Commission management software automatically tracks, aggregates and updates your commission streams.
What is a typical commission structure?
The commission and fees you charge will depend on the advisory services you offer and how you structure your business. There are several different types of commission rates including:
- A flat rate
- An hourly rate
- A percentage-based rate.
Each type of commission fee comes with pros and cons and you’ll need to decide which one aligns best with your business structure and goals.
Conclusion
No matter what management software you choose, make sure it’s not a one-dimensional solution.
The commission management software you opt for should simplify your revenue management, assist you in achieving your business goals, and work in tandem with your existing tech solutions.
