Broker and Partner Commission Accuracy Reviews

Are you paying brokers/partners what the agreements say?

Commission calcs can go for years without anyone checking the payments against the agreements.
Even small errors can add up across thousands of loans or policies and many payment runs.
Overpay and you lose money.
Underpay and you have a relationship problem, and possibly a remediation.

We recalculate your commissions from the source data and the agreed terms, then compare our numbers with what you actually paid. So you know whether the payments match the agreements.

When it's worth checking

Commission rules have changed over time (new products, new aggregator agreements, rate changes) and the system has been patched along the way.
Brokers or aggregators have queried payments.
Upfront, trail and clawback amounts are worked out in different places, or partly by hand.
Past reviews checked the process, but nobody has checked the payments themselves.
A system change or new aggregator agreement is coming up.
In insurance: commission rates differ by product, channel or broker tier, with adjustments for cancellations and mid-term changes.

What we check

Overpayments and underpayments.
Payments that don't match the agreed terms.
Terms in the agreements that are unclear or can be read two ways.
Data or system errors that change the result, such as a balance, date or product code taken from the wrong place.
Steps that make the calculation more complex than it needs to be.
Every payment, not a sample. Large volumes are fine. We routinely work with hundreds of millions of records.

Why we check against the intent, not just the process

A process review checks that the steps were followed.

But that approach can miss errors that only show up in the numbers: a requirement that was coded wrongly, a quick fix that was never removed, or a data change upstream.

Checking against the intent, using all relevant data, can catch these. More on this approach.

What you get

The total of any overpayments and underpayments, and which brokers or partners and periods they affect.
The cause of each error, so it can be fixed.
A list of terms in the agreements that need to be made clearer.
A report you can use for fixes, recoveries or conversations with brokers or partners.

How it works

Agree the scope and analysis period.
Read the agreements and learn how the data flows.
Collect the input data, as close to the source as possible, and the payments made.
Recalculate the payments and compare them with what was paid.
Work through each difference with your team. It may be a valid exception, a known data fix, or a real error.
Find the cause of each confirmed error.
Report the results and how they'll be fixed.

How our engagements work

Fixed price. The typical range is $50,000 to $150,000 (AUD).
Most reviews take 2 to 6 months.
You work with Yusuf directly. No junior staff.
Independent. We don't design or build the systems we review.

How do we check if our broker commissions are being paid correctly?

Recalculate them independently, from the agreements and the source data, then compare with what was actually paid. That's what this review does.

Is this a commission audit?

It's often called one. Unlike a typical audit, we check every payment, not just a sample.

Note: this is not an audit under the standards issued by relevant audit bodies, and we don't give an audit opinion.

Do you review commissions paid to insurance brokers, or only mortgage brokers?

Both. The approach is the same: the agreed terms, the source data and the payments made.

How much of our team's time does it take?

Most of it is at the start: the agreements, a data extract, and time with the people who know how the calculation works.
After that, we come back with questions as differences come up that we can't figure out ourselves.
(It usually takes less of your team's time than a typical review, because the person asking the questions is experienced.)

Broker and Partner Commission Reviews