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Shifting Compensation Systems

To learn more about how EAI’s Commission Processing can help your business, please email Marketing@eaiinfosys.com or call

(877) 537-1507

CHALLENGEFor investment firms, compensation is a moving target. As the company goals evolve and product popularity shifts, it is vital that compensation plans keep pace. An east coast bank provides the perfect illustration.

This bank was using a major third-party marketing firm to sell investment products in their 177 branches.

In January of 2016, this client finalized a new compensation plan for April 2016 implementation. The goal was simple—to enable the firm to reach business objectives, increase productivity, and reward outstanding performance while staying competitive. However, the bank realized that changes to compensation plans can also produce issues around processes, record keeping, and accuracy.

To successfully implement this unique compensation plan, the bank needed a technology that would mitigate any resulting disruptions and costs. This technology had to be up and running by April 1st, allowing only 3 weeks between the March commission close and completion of the fully functional compensation plan changes.

SOLUTIONAs a longtime EAI partner, this bank was already using EAI automation tools to develop management and commission reports. But this unique compensation change was outside the parameters of the long-established EAI solution. In order to handle the new plan, the bank needed EAI to:

• Revise existing reports

• Add specialized splits between rep types

• Rework the grid to calculate incrementally

Through close coordination with the client, the EAI team was able to identify gaps in the compensation plan and in the existing system. EAI developed new functionality that allowed the client to configure how credit was split between reps. The client could split at a rep code level, where multiple agents share one rep code with a split percentage assigned to it. They could also split credit at the transaction level and allow multiple reps to share credit on a single trade.

The solution had multiple benefits. With a few adjustments, it allowed existing reports to provide split data and commission amounts without a huge overhaul in the client’s processes. Once the splits were set, the system automatically calculated the commissions. The most important benefit was that the client didn’t need EAI’s help to make subsequent changes to the way their compensation plan handled splits; the feature was customer-configurable.

RESULTAs a result of EAI’s support and diligence during the implementation of the new compensation plan, everything deployed as expected. The client was able to successfully run and close April commissions accurately and on time. Despite the short window of 3 weeks, EAI updated the system logic, thoroughly tested the changes, and ran commissions.

Flexibility and quick responses to client needs are vital factors in any implementation. EAI provided both as a valuable partner to the client’s team.