Blog · Territory, capacity and quota planning
Five checks a sales operations team runs on the crediting data before commissions are calculated: credited revenue equals the ledger, every split sums to one, every credited line has an assignment in force on its date, overlay credit sits apart from split credit, and every rate and threshold is on the current plan version. Each with the failure it catches, the exception list it produces, and why a payout corrected afterwards costs more than the check.
A commission run on a crediting table with one duplicated account, one split at 140 percent and one rep on last year's accelerator produces three wrong payments, three clawbacks and three arguments. Five checks on the table before the run catch all three. This guide sets out the checks, the failures, and the exception list.
| # | Check | Identity | Catches |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Credited equals ledger | Σ reps' split credit = ledger revenue | Duplicated or missing lines |
| 2 | Splits sum to one | Σ split shares per line = 1 | Two reps at 70% each |
| 3 | One assignment per line | Exactly one assignment in force on the invoice date, or a split | Undated moves; unowned accounts |
| 4 | Overlay apart | Overlay column excluded from check 1 | Specialist credit doubling revenue |
| 5 | Plan version | Each rep's rates cite the version effective for the period | Stale accelerators; mid-year changes misapplied |
Account and rep identifiers only.
Period: Q3. Ledger $12.0m.
| Check | Result | Exceptions |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Credited $12.04m vs ledger $12.00m | 3 lines duplicated, $41,000 |
| 2 | 2 lines with splits summing to 1.4 | Listed with both reps |
| 3 | 4 lines with no assignment on date; 1 with two | Account 9034 moved 3 days after invoice; account 2207 on two reps |
| 4 | Overlay $1.1m, in its own column | Pass |
| 5 | 2 reps on plan v2025.2; period requires v2026.1 | Accelerator differs by 5 points |
Twelve lines, worked in an afternoon. Without the checks: twelve wrong payments, discovered by the reps.
| Line | Check | Value | Owner | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| L-88213 | 2: splits 1.4 | $41,000 | Sales ops, with both reps | 3 days before run |
| L-88350 | 3: no assignment | $18,000 | Sales ops | 3 days before run |
| R-04 rates | 5: plan version | Accelerator | Comp admin | 3 days before run |
Unresolved at the deadline: excluded from the run, paid next period, the rep told.
Checks after the run. Clawbacks and trust.
Check 4 skipped. Credited revenue exceeds the ledger and every attainment is inflated by the same specialist.
Plan version assumed. Last year's plan on this year's revenue.
No deadline on the exceptions. The run waits, or the errors go through.
Mapped once, the ledger, the assignments, the splits and the plan register produce the five checks and the exception list before every commission run. Covirage builds this from the exports as they are. The metrics governance solution describes the setup, and the crediting rules guide covers the rules the checks enforce.
Because a commission paid on a duplicated line is a clawback, and a clawback is a conversation about trust. The five checks take minutes on the crediting table and turn every error into a line fixed before anyone is paid.
Compensation plans change: a rate, an accelerator, a threshold. The check is that every rep's calculation cites the plan version effective for the period, and that a mid-year change is applied from its effective date, not to the whole year. A rep paid on last year's accelerator is an error in either direction.
Sales operations, with a deadline before the run. Lines not resolved by the deadline are excluded from the run and paid in the next, with the rep told which and why. That rule is what makes the deadline real.