A month-end spreadsheet with too many columns
Your practitioners are paid a mix of base and commission, or are self-employed on a percentage. Injectables are paid on treatment price minus product cost. Skin treatments have a different rate. Retail skincare is a flat percentage. Membership and voucher redemptions are treated differently again. Discounts and refunds complicate everything.
At the end of each month, you export sales from your clinic software into a spreadsheet and work through it line by line. It takes most of a day. Then a practitioner queries their figure because a refund from last month was deducted, and you spend another hour tracing it.
Why commission is so fiddly in aesthetics
Aesthetics has an unusual mix: high-value treatments with significant product cost, retail sales, packages and memberships paid upfront, and practitioners on different arrangements.
- Commission on price after product cost for injectables, which varies by product and amount used.
- Different rates by treatment category and sometimes by practitioner.
- Courses, memberships and vouchers paid upfront but delivered later.
- Discounts, promotions and refunds that change the base.
- Retail sales credited to whoever recommended the product, not who rang it up.
What manual commission costs
| Issue | Effect |
|---|---|
| A day of spreadsheet work each month | Owner or manager time off the clinic floor |
| Queries and corrections | Practitioners unsure their pay is right |
| Rules applied inconsistently | Different treatment of similar sales month to month |
| Product cost estimated | Commission paid on guessed margins |
| Late pay statements | Frustration in a team you want to keep |
Good practitioners are hard to find. A commission process they trust is part of keeping them.
There is a pricing cost too. When product cost is estimated rather than measured, you cannot see which treatments leave the clinic with a sensible margin after commission. A popular treatment can quietly earn very little once a generous rate is paid on a price that barely covers the syringe.
Commission calculated from your sales data
- Your commission rules written down once: rates by category and practitioner, how product cost is deducted, how courses, memberships and vouchers count, and how refunds are handled.
- Sales and treatment data pulled from your clinic software through its API or scheduled export, including products used per treatment where recorded.
- Product cost taken from your stock records, so injectable commission uses real costs, not estimates.
- Each practitioner's statement produced with every line shown: sale, date, base, rate and amount.
- Exceptions flagged for you to decide, such as a refund on a treatment from a previous month or a sale with no practitioner attached.
- Approved totals exported to your payroll or to Xero or QuickBooks as bills for self-employed practitioners.
How your practitioners are engaged, employed or self-employed, and what that means for pay, is for your accountant and adviser. The system applies the commission rules you agree with them.
A month end that makes sense to everyone
Commission statements are ready on the first working day, and each one shows exactly how it was worked out. Queries become a quick look at a line rather than an afternoon in a spreadsheet. Rules are applied the same way every month.
You also see which treatments and retail lines actually earn the clinic money after product cost and commission, which is useful when setting prices.
Practitioners can see their month building up as it happens, if you choose to share that with them. That tends to reduce end-of-month surprises, and it gives them a clear view of how retail recommendations add to their pay.
Signs the current setup is costing you
- You calculate commission in a spreadsheet each month.
- Commission rates differ by treatment or practitioner.
- Injectable commission depends on product cost you estimate.
- Practitioners regularly query their statements.
- Refunds and discounts make the numbers hard to follow.