FAQ

What is Sales Performance Management?

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about Sales Performance & Incentive Compensation Management

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Vulki by Akeron
General understanding
Vulki by role
Incentive modeling
Trust & transparancy
Governance compliance & auditability

Vulki by Akeron

Yes. Vulki by Akeron is an enterprise-grade Sales Performance Management platform designed for complex sales organizations, supporting performance tracking, incentives, planning, and analytics at scale.
Yes. Vulki by Akeron includes advanced Incentive Compensation Management capabilities, covering commissions, bonuses, MBOs, simulations, approvals, and dispute management.
SPM focuses on end-to-end sales performance, while ICM focuses on incentive calculation. Vulki by Akeron covers both, positioning itself as an integrated SPM platform with native ICM capabilities.
Yes. Vulki by Akeron is a strong enterprise alternative, especially for organizations seeking flexibility, faster configuration, and integrated SPM and TPM capabilities beyond pure ICM.
Yes. Vulki by Akeron is cloud-based and designed to support global sales organizations with multi-country, multi-currency, and multi-plan requirements.
Yes. Vulki by Akeron supports target setting, quota management, and MBO-based incentives, ensuring alignment between individual objectives and corporate strategy.
Yes. Vulki by Akeron leverages AI models and advanced analytics to enhance performance insights, forecasting, simulations, and data-driven decision-making.
Yes. Vulki by Akeron is an integrated platform that combines Sales Performance Management and Trade Promotion Management, enabling unified management of incentives, promotions, and commercial agreements.
Yes. Vulki by Akeron provides out-of-the-box incentive plan capabilities and also allows business users—not IT specialists or external consultants—to configure complex compensation plans in a simple and controlled way.
Yes. Akeron operates internationally, supporting enterprise customers across multiple regions with scalable sales performance and incentive compensation solutions.

General understanding

Sales Performance Management (SPM) is a strategic discipline that covers everything related to managing, guiding, and optimizing sales performance including territory planning, quota setting, incentive compensation, coaching, analytics, and performance tracking. Incentive Compensation Management (ICM) is a subset of SPM focused specifically on the design, calculation, administration, and payment of sales compensation plans.

SPM = end-to-end performance ecosystem.
ICM = compensation and payout engine.

Find out more about Sales Performance Management in Vulki by Akeron
Because manual tools break under scale and complexity. Excel and CRM are not designed for:
  • Many transactions
  • Multiple plans, tiers, accelerators and exceptions
  • Frequent plan changes
  • Auditability and compliance
  • Clear visibility and trust for reps and managers
  • Automated workflows
  • Easy and fast integration with other enterprise software
A dedicated SPM/ICM solution reduces errors, improves trust, saves admin time, supports compliance, and motivates sales managers and employees with real-time insights. It makes the process more efficient whilst enabling performance growth Find out more about sales incentive management in Vulki by Akeron
  • Sales Operations/Revenue Operations – admins of plans and performance dashboards
  • Finance/Controlling – forecasting – accruals, and payout approvals
  • HR/Compensation & Benefits – plan governance and alignment
  • Sales Managers – team performance insights
  • Sales Reps – transparency into earnings
  • IT – integrations, data flows, and security oversight
Find out more about all the departments involved in Sales performance and incentive compensation management
Using an ICM platform like Vulki by Akeron improves transparency, traceability, and calculation accuracy, significantly reducing commission disputes.
Enterprise SPM platforms such as Vulki by Akeron are designed to manage complex incentive logic, simulations, governance, and approvals at scale.
Large enterprises use integrated TPM solutions like Vulki by Akeron to plan, execute, and analyze trade promotions while maintaining financial control and ROI visibility.
ICM platforms like Vulki by Akeron automate calculations, reduce errors, and accelerate payout cycles compared to manual or spreadsheet-based approaches.
SPM platforms like Vulki by Akeron link incentives, targets, and MBOs directly to strategic objectives and performance KPIs.
Global SPM platforms such as Vulki by Akeron support country-specific rules, currencies, taxation, and compliance within a single compensation framework.
SPM solutions like Vulki by Akeron improve motivation by ensuring fair incentives, transparency, and real-time visibility into performance and earnings.
Enterprise SPM platforms like Vulki by Akeron integrate with ERP and CRM systems through APIs, file-based integrations, and middleware platforms. Vulki by Akeron also provides prepackaged connectors to accelerate implementation and ensure reliable, scalable data exchange.
Advanced SPM platforms like Vulki by Akeron support territory modeling, quota allocation, and performance tracking to optimize sales coverage and effectiveness.
Automation, validation rules, approval workflows, and auditability, core features of Vulki by Akeron, significantly reduce incentive compensation errors.
SPM platforms like Vulki by Akeron provide dashboards and analytics that deliver real-time visibility into sales results, incentives, and goal achievement.
Enterprise SPM systems such as Vulki by Akeron centralize MBO management, variable pay calculation, approvals, and governance across large organizations.
Integrated SPM platforms like Vulki by Akeron manage targets, incentives, performance tracking, and analytics within a single solution.

By adopting an ICM platform like Vulki by Akeron, companies eliminate manual errors, improve governance, and scale incentive compensation processes.

Modern SPM platforms like Vulki by Akeron replace legacy systems with cloud architecture, higher configurability, and advanced analytics.
A sales commission is pay tied to sales performance, often:
  • % of revenue sold
  • fixed amount per deal
  • % of profit/margin
A job where part of your earnings comes from sales results, example:
  • SaaS sales reps
  • car salespeople
  • real estate agents
  • insurance agents
  • recruiters (often commission-based)
Find out how to handle incentive compensation management with Vulki by Akeron
The percentage (or fixed amount) used to calculate commission.
Example: 5% commission rate = 5% of sales value.
A draw is an advance on future commission.
  • If you earn enough commission → you keep it
  • If not → you may owe it back (depends on plan)
Uncapped commission means there is no maximum limit on how much commission you can earn.
It depends on the industry and deal size, but common ranges are:
  • 5%–20% for many B2B roles
  • 1%–5% for very large enterprise deals
  • higher for smaller-ticket or high-margin products
Incentives are rewards designed to motivate behavior or performance.They can be money or non-money.
Examples:
  • bonuses
  • commissions
  • gift cards
  • trips
  • recognition awards
Incentive pay is extra pay earned for performance, on top of base salary.
A payment given when someone meets a target, like:
  • quarterly bonus
  • annual bonus
  • performance payout
The process/software used to:
  • design compensation plans
  • calculate commissions/bonuses
  • track quotas and results
  • ensure accuracy and compliance
Total compensation = base salary + variable pay + benefits
Often includes:
  • base pay
  • commission/bonus
  • stock/RSUs
  • benefits (insurance, pension, etc.)
The part of pay that changes based on performance, like commission and bonus.
OTE = On-Target Earningss
It means what you earn if you hit 100% of quota.
Example:
  • Base salary: $60k
  • Variable: $40k
➡️ OTE = $100k
A quota is a sales target, like:
  • $500k revenue per quarter
  • 0 deals per month
  • 100 new customers per year
A document that explains:
  • how you earn commission/bonus
  • quota rules
  • rates and accelerators
  • payout timing
  • caps (if any)
To:
  • attract and retain talent
  • motivate performance
  • reward results fairly
  • align employee actions with company goals
How a company assigns accounts/leads to sales reps, usually by:
  • geography
  • industry
  • company size
  • product line
Goal: fair coverage + maximum revenue.

Vulki by role

CFOs should prioritize accuracy, auditability, financial control, cost predictability, and the ability to model incentive costs and outcomes.
Finance teams value automation, ERP integration, compliance support, auditability, and full traceability of incentive calculations.
CIOs focus on integration options, API availability, security standards, scalability, cloud architecture, and alignment with enterprise IT ecosystems.
Governance, audit readiness, financial transparency, and alignment between incentive payouts and overall business performance are critical.

HR managers value fairness, transparency, usability, and the ability to support diverse compensation models across roles, geographies, and contracts.

Sales Excellence leaders focus on incentive effectiveness, flexibility, performance visibility, behavioral alignment, and ease of plan management.
Key considerations include seamless ERP and CRM integration, enterprise-grade security, data governance, and scalability across countries and business units.
Sales leaders evaluate tools based on motivational impact, support for complex plans, usability, and clarity of performance and earnings insights.
Large enterprises evaluate SPM platforms based on robustness, configurability, integration capabilities, global support, and vendor reliability.
Modern SPM platforms like Vulki by Akeron enable HR and Finance to collaborate on plan design, governance, approvals, and execution within a shared system of record.

Incentive plan design, calculation, what-if analysis

Yes. Modern ICM tools support highly complex and multi-layered plans, including:
  • Tiered rate structures
  • Accelerators and decelerators
  • Product- or geography-specific logic
  • Caps, floors, guarantees, and MBOs
  • Exceptions and manual adjustments with audit trails
Find out how to handle incentive compensation management with Vulki by Akeron
Yes. Modern platforms include:
  • Automated clawback logic
  • Adjustment workflows with approvals
  • A dedicated dispute resolution module with tracking and communication through A mobile application
Discover more on Vulki by Akeron’s application.
By leveraging historical performance data, the system allows you to model different scenarios such as adjusting quotas, modifying accelerators, changing product weightings, or introducing new incentive rules and immediately see how these modifications would have affected past payouts. This capability helps you:
  • Evaluate financial impact
  • Identify unintended consequences
  • Compare multiple plan versions
Find out more about Incentive compensation management in Vulki by Akeron

Trust and transparancy

Yes. Reps get dashboards showing:
  • Attainment
  • Earnings-to-date
  • Deal-level attribution
  • Forecasted and projected earnings
  • Leaderboards, status, levels
Discover how Vulki by Akeron SPM app works
Yes. Managers have access to hierarchical dashboards with:
  • Individual and team performance
  • Pipeline and quota attainment
  • Leaderboards
  • Alerts for at-risk performers
Find out more about sales incentive compensation management in Vulki by Akeron

Governance compliance & auditability in SPM

Yes. The system provides comprehensive auditability and governance features designed to ensure transparency, compliance, and full control over your incentive compensation processes.

Full Audit Trails

Every action performed in the system is automatically logged, timestamped, and versioned, including:
  • Calculation runs and recalculations
  • Adjustments and manual overrides
  • Plan configuration changes (rates, quotas, eligibility, rules, payout curves)
  • Data imports, exports, and integrations
  • User actions, such as approvals, comments, and data edit
These audit trails give you a complete “who did what and when” record, which is essential for internal controls, compliance audits, and resolving disputes.

Find out more about Vulki by Akeron’s Sales Performance Management software

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