Client Story
Transforming Alpha Tax Solutions’ Agent Commission System
Manual Processes Disrupting Productivity
Alpha Tax Solutions assists commercial property owners in reducing costs on their Texas property tax bills. The business model is relatively straightforward: an agent works with a client to lower a property valuation, and when the client receives a cost saving, the agent gets a commission.
Unfortunately, every commission had to be entered manually in Alpha Tax’s FileMaker system. Agent payments were subject to pay rates based on complex rules specific to agent success, savings amount, and client type. There was no logic in the system to automate these calculations.
Alpha Tax’s operations leaders spent a significant amount of time entering commissions and bonus payments. This, understandably, led to human error. Percentage rates were sometimes incorrect, or calculations were missed. Agents had to wait for their commissions while leadership slowed down further in an attempt to avoid errors.
Our Automated Calculation Solution
This is where our team stepped in. To design a solution for Alpha Tax, we explored Alpha Tax’s FileMaker system and the underlying commission structure, which was complex:
- Commission rates are determined based on the percentage of money Alpha Tax was able to save their clients.
- Money saved for clients dictated final percentages.
- Client type distinguished commission calculations.
- Special circumstances required custom calculations.
We added a critical field into the client’s application that displayed a custom algorithm our team devised. The final solution is automated:
- Implementation of an algorithm unique to Alpha Tax in a new field in FileMaker.
- Comprehensive rules engine that accounts for all roles and savings combinations
- Central validation checks so that errors are caught before they become real
- An automated commission system that runs without the need for any manual entry.
Saved Time, Fewer Errors, Happier Agents
The Alpha Tax team immediately experienced results:
- Time: hours of weekly manual commission input are saved.
- Error elimination: automatic calculations eliminate errors.
- Agent satisfaction: agents get accurate commissions paid out quickly.
- Operational efficiency: the Alpha Tax sales team can focus on growing the business without worrying about their commission checks.
What’s Next
This successful project has led to new opportunities for collaboration between our teams. Alpha Tax’s team is already looking at further improvements to their FileMaker application.
Florence Ye
Chief Financial Officer
We worked with Michelle, Claire, and Sheng on a major update to our software, and we were extremely impressed with not only the quality of work, but the timeliness and efficiency.
There’s two things that we at Alpha Tax Solutions really emphasize: quality and efficiency of work. Efficiency was extremely vital as we are on hourly billing. Some companies will take advantage of that. Not Soliant.
The time it took for Michelle and Sheng to work on the coding was LESS than their estimate, and for a major project like this, we were thrilled that there were no issues after the deployment.
Michelle led the meetings and asked good questions to get to know our software and our business. Sheng was extremely easy to reach and work with, and we felt confident that Claire took care of the administrative tasks on the back end.
We can’t imagine having another team to support us!
About Alpha Tax Solutions
Alpha Tax Solutions is a professional service firm specializing in property tax valuation. We encourage communication between our firm and the client from ownership through local property management when developing a strategy for a successful appeal.
Automating Your Processes
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