Step-by-Step Commissions Processing in Commissions+

Managing commissions can be one of the most complex and time-consuming tasks for insurance agencies, GAs, and IMOs/FMOs. From ensuring proper payout distribution and identifying missed payments to issuing agent statements, there are many moving parts to keep track of. Using a commissions processing tool, like AgencyBloc’s Commissions+ solution, can help your health insurance agency or upline:

• Better manage incoming carrier commission statements
• Ensure accuracy of those payments
• Track outgoing commission payments for agents/downlines
• Improve reporting for increased business insights

With Commissions+, you can simplify and streamline the entire process to save time and uncover missing revenue. Follow along in this blog to learn the essential steps for processing commissions efficiently and accurately in Commissions+.

How to Streamline Your Commissions Setup

Efficient commissions processing starts with proper setup. By building a strong foundation that helps you track who to pay and how much, you can simplify your workflows and prevent errors down the line. In Commissions+, these tools are called rate tables and payee schedules.

Creating Rate Tables

Rate tables are essential for defining and tracking how incoming commissions are distributed to agents, account managers, and other parties. They manage the payout process and reduce errors. Once rate tables are created, your team can apply them to policies to make uploading new carrier commission statements easier to manage, but more on that later.

This is how your team can utilize rate tables in Commissions+:

1. Create a new rate table.
2. Name the rate table descriptively so you know what type of payout structures it has (i.e., “75/25 Split” or “100% of Commission”).
3. Add rules to the rate table by specifying rate types (% of Commission, % of Premium, Flat Amount, Per Life, or % of Remainder).
4. For policies that change the payout after a period of time, set time periods to automatically adjust rates after the first year.
5. Save your rate table and start applying it to policies.

Helpful Tip: Use predefined rate tables to handle common scenarios like 75/25 splits or first-year rate changes to save time and ensure consistency in your internal commissions tracking and management.

Setting Up Payees

Every health insurance agency or upline pays out commissions. Whether you’re paying the sum to one individual or splitting the payment amongst many, it’s critical to have a process to track those splits to ensure everything is running smoothly.

In Commissions+, it’s best practice for each policy to have at least one payee. These payees can include agents, sales managers, account managers, referrals, house accounts, or anyone else that your agency pays commissions to. Adding payees to policies allows your agency to define their splits and track the payout. Commissions+ simplifies this further by enabling you to manage hierarchies effectively, such as splitting payments between internal and external agents. 

Helpful Tip: There is no payout structure too complicated or too large if your team can break it down to who to pay and how much to pay them. 

Automating the Commission Data Importing Process

Streamlining how you bring in commission data is an easy way to save time and reduce errors. With Commissions+, you can automate much of this process using our proprietary carrier-specific import mapping tool. By efficiently managing imports, your team can focus on reconciliation and reporting rather than repetitive manual data entry.

Using Import Maps in Commissions+

Carrier-specific import maps simplify the process of bringing commission statements into Commissions+ by creating a map the data can follow. Build your map ahead of time so that it’s ready to go the first time you import your carrier statements into Commissions+. This process alone saves agencies significant time. 

“With the carrier statement import, we’ve been able to drastically reduce errors and typos, saving us many hours and headaches. On manual entry alone, we’ve gained back 250 hours every year, resulting in a savings of $4,000.”

—D&S Agency

With import maps in place, your process of uploading a new carrier statement is:

1. Start a new import.
2. Select the transaction type (new or existing).
3. Upload the carrier’s statement file and map it to Commissions+.
4. Assign statement dates, deposit information, and other details.
5. Import the statement, review the import summary, and address issues as necessary.

Helpful Tip: Carriers make changes to their files. So, your import maps should be living tools that you update and maintain regularly.

Handling Red Edits When Reconciling Commissions

Ensuring your commissions are reconciled accurately is crucial. In Commissions+, errors are easily identified by what we call a “red edit.” Red edits highlight entries that require attention. By addressing these edits systematically, you can maintain the accuracy of your records and streamline the overall reconciliation process.

Protecting Your Revenue by Identifying Missed Commissions

Recovering missed commissions is essential for maintaining your agency’s profitability. By understanding why missed commissions happen and leveraging the right tools, your team can quickly identify and address gaps. Delays in carrier payments or unreported policy cancellations are common culprits, but with the right reports and a strategic approach, these issues can be resolved efficiently.

How Missed Commissions Happen

Missed commissions are typically caused by delayed carrier payments, which are often two to three months behind schedule, or by unreported policy cancellations. These issues create gaps in your revenue stream, making it critical to identify and address them promptly. To mitigate these risks, it’s important to track policy and payment data meticulously, ensuring that every transaction aligns with expectations. Using commission-specific tools and running commission reports can help your agency recover missed payments and maintain a steady cash flow.

Using Reports to Identify Gaps

Carriers make mistakes, and you want to ensure you receive everything you’re due. Using a commissions-specific system that can quickly identify the inaccuracies is essential. 

"We have been using AgencyBloc's platform for about a year and a half. We've had a great experience so far, and within that timeframe, we have been able to recover $69,000 in missed commissions, which has been amazing."

—Becca D., United Producer’s Group

Run the following reports in Commissions+ to uncover missed commissions:

• Commission Not Received Report. Identify policies with no recorded payments during a specified timeframe. 
• Expected Commissions Report. Compare actual payments against projected amounts to identify discrepancies.

Helpful Tip: Run these reports a few months after the expected payment date to account for potential carrier delays.

Analyzing and Optimizing Performance with Reports

Detailed reporting is the cornerstone of understanding and improving your commissions processes. By leveraging tools like agent statements, dashboard analytics, and custom reports, you can identify trends, monitor performance, and make data-driven decisions that enhance your agency’s overall efficiency and profitability.

Generating Agent Statements

Commissions+ makes it easy to create detailed agent statements and distribute them to your downlines:

1. Go to Reports > Agent Statements.
2. Customize statements to include commission splits, overrides, bonuses, and other details.
3. Export or schedule statements for recurring delivery.

Helpful Tip: Use recurring statements to maintain consistent communication with your agency’s downline or partner agents.

Dashboard Analytics

With real-time graphs, dashboard analytics provide a high-level overview of commission trends that enable you to track actual versus expected payments with ease. These tools also help you identify patterns by monitoring peaks and valleys, whether on a monthly basis or year-over-year. By visualizing performance metrics at a glance, your agency can quickly identify areas that need attention and make informed decisions to optimize processes further.

Commissions Reporting

Customizable commission reports allow your team to dive deeper into specific data points for a clearer picture of your agency’s performance. Analyze data like:

• Total commissions received by each carrier or product to identify your most lucrative partnerships
• Commission reconciliation reports to ensure accuracy in payments
• Top-producing agents or policies to shed light on the areas driving the most success 

These insights empower your health insurance agency or upline to adjust carrier partnerships and strategically plan for future hiring initiatives, all while keeping your business aligned with its goals.

Simplify Your Commissions Processing

Efficient commissions processing is vital to your agency’s success. By using AgencyBloc’s Commissions+ solution, your team can expedite operations, reduce manual work, and uncover hidden revenue. From setup to reconciliation, each step is designed to save you time and improve accuracy.

Ready to take control of your commissions? Schedule a demo of AgencyBloc’s Commissions+ solution today and see how our software can streamline your processes.

Posted by Allison Babberl on Tuesday, February 4, 2025 in Commissions+

1. commissions
2. productivity