A rebate management system will help you track, calculate, automate and manage rebates. We have a buyers' guide that outlines everything you should look for in a Rebate Management System, but I wanted to outline my top 12 features in this blog.

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‍1. Complete solution The rebate management system should cover all aspects of your trading relationships from contract to claim.
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‍2. Integration to anything Systems consolidation with any kind of system should be built in — be that ERP integration, EDI, CSV or other types of transfer.  A rebate management system is data hungry, requiring information to be passed between it and sales, contracts, purchasing, goods received, invoicing, and other elements of your financial systems.
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‍3. Extensive workflow Built in workflow, approval governance and individual sign off limits to ensure that all agreements are clear, visible and exist in a single electronic form available to appropriate people, including suppliers.
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‍4. Complete systematisation Clear, systematic methods for creating any type of deal to eliminate different interpretations and calculate profitability with accuracy. Want to see this in action?
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‍5. Automated accruals recording Controlled and prudent financial accruals recording — within user-defined rules.
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‍6. Earnings calculations at all levels Granular earnings calculations showing margin and profitability at item, category, branch and overall levels.
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‍7. Forecasting at all levels Automated forecasting of turnover and rebates, again at a granular level with no human dependency.  This is vital for targeted deals and for determining when renegotiation would be appropriate.

8. Threshold visibility for commercial team Ability for commercial team to see approaching rebate thresholds to enable them to make good decisions on purchase volumes.  Risk reward metrics and performance tracking against incentive targets available to all concerned — not just procurement.
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‍9. Deal tracking Automatic allocation of rebate cash received against deals in order to track deal balances and profitability. Complete audit trail for any agreed claims write-offs.
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‍10. Flexibility Ability to cope with “specials” in a way that is completely transparent to all concerned.
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‍11. Support The team that supports you needs to REALLY understand rebate management and have experience of modelling all the “exceptions” that you may think you have.
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‍12. Platform Since a rebate management system needs to integrate with lots of other systems, the best platform is a cloud-based solution. This puts the support and maintenance firmly in the hands of the software author, leaving you to get on with the job of negotiating the best rebate deals you can! To find out about the other 50 requirements, download our buyers' guide to rebate management systems: Or, contact one of our rebate management specialists to discuss your needs in more detail.