LogDNA Success Story

LogDNA reduced human error by automating commission calculations with Spiff

Summary

Since implementing Spiff, LogDNA has established trust between their commissioned employees and the company due to visibility and transparency into commission statements. Sales reps have also been able to focus more of their efforts on selling rather than scrutinizing their commission statements, thanks in large part to the commission process now being automated.

Key Results

Improved trust between commissionable employees and the company
Increased visibility and transparency into commission statements
Reduced human error by automating the commission process

The Challenge

Manual commission management provided no visibility or transparency into commission statements.

Prior to Spiff, LogDNA’s finance team was tracking commissions in spreadsheets, however, sales reps had no visibility into the numbers behind their commissions. The spreadsheets weren’t shared with the sales organization- they were just paid. This resulted in reps spending a lot of time trying to figure out why they were paid what they were paid and if the numbers were even accurate.

The team at LogDNA realized they needed to find a solution that would not only give sales reps real-time visibility and transparency into their commission statements, but also something that would automate the process to reduce human error and build trust between the sales team and the organization. Being in the finance and accounting realm, they knew it was inevitable that errors were being made, as data was being transferred from one source to another.

“When you calculate commissions manually in spreadsheets, it’s not about how many errors you’re going to make- you will make an error,” explained Bryan Schmitz, Director of Revenue Operations at LogDNA. “ You will have to reach out to HR and ask for a special payroll run because you messed up. Even if you have controls in place around gathering data, formulas can change. No matter how well you lock something down, mistakes will eventually happen.”

The Solution

Increased transparency and visibility into commission statements significantly improved trust between commissionable employees and the company.

Once Spiff was implemented, transparency and visibility drastically increased. Sales reps were able to view their commission statements in real-time and they noticed the consistency month after month. This has significantly improved trust between commissionable employees and the company.

“It’s important for the sales organization and the go to market teams that are commissioned feel as though the finance organization has operationalized the compensation plans that their managers have agreed upon and that their incentives are accurate,” stated Schmitz. “When they feel like they’re being paid accurately, they can focus more time on selling, which is very important.”

“It’s not the sales organization’s job to double check the finance organization’s work and they shouldn’t feel like they have to. It’s unfortunate that sometimes when you’re working with spreadsheets that it comes down to that, and that’s fair because compensation is important to employees. But when you have a SaaS product that calculates their monthly commission amounts, it really gives reps more trust in the process.”

Bryan Schmitz

Director of Revenue Operations

LogDNA

The Results

LogDNA reduced the rate of human error and saved the finance team time by automating their commission process.

Automating the commission process led to a decrease in human error. This allowed sales reps to focus their time and efforts on selling. “It’s not the sales organization’s job to double check the finance organization’s work and they shouldn’t feel like they have to,” said Schmitz. “It’s unfortunate that sometimes when you’re working with

spreadsheets that it comes down to that, and that’s fair because compensation is important to employees. But when you have a SaaS product that calculates their monthly commission amounts, it really gives reps more trust in the process.”

In addition, automating the process has saved the finance team a lot of time, as there are less disputes between sales and finance. “It’s the difference between going in and gut checking a few things each month in Spiff versus calculating, sharing, and ensuring that all formulas are right,” explained Schmitz. “Other than that, I don’t have to go into Google Sheets where each commissioned employee has their own tab that feeds into a summary tab that can then be shared with our CRO and CFO. They all have access to Spiff and can login whenever they want. I don’t have to send snapshots anymore.”