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Originally published at Internet.comSuccessful small businesses tend to be masters of outsourcing functions that aren't core to their expertise - payroll and human resources being two prime examples.
If you pay employees or partners based on sales performance, outsourcing that part of your business may make sense as well.
Looking to do for compensation services what ADP does for payroll, Xactly Corp. has launched Xactly Incent Managed Service. The outsourced service is designed to provide small to midsize companies with an option to automate sales compensation management functions.
Xactly's mircosite is designed to let you quickly get more info on the new managed service. (Click for larger image)
Karen Steele, Xactly's vice president of marketing, said that incentive compensation management technology has not typically been an option for small businesses with fewer than 25 payees because of the lack of dedicated internal personnel to create, manage and administer incentive compensation plans and process compensation.
A payee, according to Steele can be salespeople, marketing types or customer support personnel - anyone who's compensation is effected by incentives.
Xactly Incent Managed Service is aimed at small businesses with 1-99 employees or mid-sized companies with 100-999 employees that have 25 or few payees; have 10 or fewer incentive compensation plans for variably paid employees; manage fewer than 10 compensation plans on an annual basis; process 1,000 transactions or fewer per month to pay variable comp; process compensation in a single currency.
Xactly said its Incent Managed Service will process commission and bonus payments, generate payroll files, create commission statements and distribute reports to payees, help sales operations and finance staff investigate issues to make compensation adjustments, provide management reporting, offer management reporting for customers, audit and track adjustments and manage all customer data in a secure SAS 70 Type II certified environment.
Small companies, Steele said, can take advantage of Xactly's on-demand technology and experience in creating compensation specialists. "The Xactly Incent Managed Service gives SMBs the ability to focus on their core business processes and leverage Xactly's deep compensation domain expertise and best practices."
Xactly Incent Managed Service carries a one-time evaluation and implementation fee of $7,995. The first step of the process is you send files using an Xactly Excel template to a secure environment, Steele said. Xactly then analyzes your compensation plans and policies. Xactly sets up of people, hierarchy and relationships and then configures and tests the compensation plans, she said.
In addition to the set-up fee, you pay a monthly fee that ranges from $1,500 to $2,500 a month depending on whether you choose the Basic, Premium or Deluxe plan. Details on the three versions are as follows:
Managed Service Basic ($1,500 per month) * One payment cycle (i.e., all the payees are paid at the same time) * One payment file per month * Two standard reports for payees * Up to 15 adjustments per month * Up to 30 support calls from administrators per month Managed Service Premium ($2,000 per month) * Up to two payment cycles per month (payees arre paid at two different schedules) * Up to two payment files per month * Two standard reports for payees * Up to 25 adjustments per month * Up to 50 support calls per month Managed Services Deluxe ($2,500 per month) * Up to two payment cycles per month (payees are paid at two different schedules) * Up to two payment files per month * Two standard reports for payees * Team ranking report for management * One analytics report for management (e.g., analysis of revenues and commissions by product) * Xactly validates transactions before they are processed * Creation of plan documents and routing them to management and payees for review and approval (up to twice a year) * Unlimited adjustments * Unlimited support calls You can get more information on the managed service from either Xactly or through Salesforce.com AppExchange.
Dan Muse is executive editor of internet.com's Small Business Channel, EarthWeb's Networking Channel and ServerWatch.
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Author: Dan Muse
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