Money earned, never collected
Your marketing manager ran a joint event with a vendor last quarter. Pre-approved, co-funded, well attended. The claim needed proof of performance: the invoice from the venue, the attendee list, photos, a copy of the invitation with the vendor's logo. It needed submitting within a set number of days. The venue invoice arrived late, the photos were on someone's phone, and the window closed.
On the sales side, a vendor's back-end rebate depends on hitting growth targets for certain product lines. Nobody tracked progress, so nobody pushed the last few deals over the line before the quarter closed, and nobody checked that the rebate paid matched what was earned.
Why incentive money slips away
Vendor incentive programmes are detailed and they change. Back-end rebates, front-end discounts, growth incentives, new logo bonuses, MDF, co-op funds. Each has qualifying rules, a period, a claim or payment process and evidence requirements. They are published in programme guides and portal pages that one person reads once.
The evidence comes from different places: orders from the distributor, invoices from suppliers, photos from marketing, attendee lists from event tools. Nothing gathers them against the claim.
| Incentive type | Typical requirement | Where it slips |
|---|---|---|
| Back-end rebate | Qualifying revenue in a period | Nobody checks the paid amount |
| Growth or target bonus | Hitting a threshold by quarter end | Progress not tracked |
| MDF or co-op | Pre-approval and proof of performance | Claim window missed |
| New logo or promotion | Deal flagged at order time | Flag missing from the order |
What the unclaimed money costs
For many resellers, vendor incentives are a meaningful part of the profit on a vendor relationship, which makes missed claims a direct loss rather than a nice-to-have. Unused marketing funds also make the vendor less likely to approve the next request.
The work to recover missed claims is usually larger than the work to claim them on time, and some cannot be recovered at all.
The incentive tracker we build
- Programme register: each programme you take part in is recorded with its period, qualifying rules in plain terms, claim deadline, evidence list and owner. Your channel lead writes the rules from the vendor's programme guide; we do not interpret them.
- Accrual estimate: qualifying orders are identified from your distributor and sales data using those rules, and an expected amount per programme is estimated so finance knows what to expect.
- Target progress: for growth or threshold incentives, progress is shown against the target with the time left, so sales can see where a few more deals matter.
- Claim tasks: each MDF or co-op activity gets a claim task at approval time, with its evidence checklist and deadline.
- Evidence collection: supplier invoices from your accounts package, attendee exports from your event tool and photos uploaded from a phone are attached to the claim as they arrive, with gaps shown.
- Payment check: when payments or credit notes arrive, they are matched to the expected amount and differences are listed for your channel lead to query with the vendor.
What your channel and marketing teams see
The channel lead sees every programme, what is expected, what has been claimed, what has been paid and what is overdue. The marketing manager sees each activity's claim with its evidence checklist half complete and the deadline counting down, well before it closes.
When the vendor's channel manager asks how the programme is going, the answer is in front of you.
Could money be slipping here?
- You have missed an MDF claim deadline.
- Nobody checks rebate payments against what should have been earned.
- Progress towards growth targets is not tracked during the quarter.
- Programme rules are known by one person.
- Claim evidence lives in phones, inboxes and personal folders.