The Company  

EnviroVent is a manufacturing company based in North Yorkshire in the UK, specializing in domestic ventilation products. With approximately 300 employees, EnviroVent also has national installation and sales teams.

The company works with electrical wholesalers, social housing providers, new-build construction companies, electricians and subcontractors, homeowners and private landlords—EnviroVent operates on a supply-only basis, selling products directly, and also offers a supply-and-fit service. For this, they employ electrical engineers who install ventilation systems in customers' homes or properties.

EnviroVent manages a large customer base and oversees around 100+ rebate agreements, each with its own set of terms and conditions. While the structure of these rebates varies slightly across each segment, the majority of the agreements—and their complexity—lie with the electrical wholesalers. This is a key aspect of their business, particularly when dealing with the larger, more intricate agreements tied to their electrical wholesaler partners.

Robert Knight, the Internal Audit Manager at EnviroVent, has been overseeing the company’s rebate processes for the past few years, although it is not a primary aspect of his role. This responsibility is now being transitioned to Adam Jamieson, the Finance Manager. Adam has taken over most of the day-to-day administration and will soon become the main user of Enable once the rollout is fully completed.  

Price Control, Growth and Sales

EnviroVent uses rebates in various ways to support their business, particularly with social housing customers and electrical wholesalers. To manage this, EnviroVent sells its products to these wholesalers at different prices.

EnviroVent also applies rebates in the new-build sector and with electrical wholesalers to drive business growth. "With electrical wholesalers, we use rebates to incentivize them to organically grow the type of business we want to increase," Knight explains.  

Knight also highlights how EnviroVent implements growth tiers to further incentivize wholesalers. "We’ll set up tiered rebates on over-the-counter business. For example, if a wholesaler grows their spend over year’s performance, we could offer extra rebate on their trade business. This tiered approach motivates growth within the wholesalers."

The Challenges

Cumbersome Spreadsheets

Before implementing Enable, EnviroVent relied on a cumbersome spreadsheet system to manage their rebate processes. Knight describes the setup: “We had one large spreadsheet that pulled a live invoice sales report from Sage, our accounting system. Alongside that, we manually entered a lot of data about the terms of the rebates, rates, periods, and targets. There were also complex formulas to determine which rebates applied to each individual invoice line, as multiple rebates could apply.”

He continues, “Since everything was contained in that one large spreadsheet, only a select few people had access to it. This made it quite vulnerable to being compromised. Our network of sales managers had to request access to information on rebate targets or performance, which meant asking someone to open the spreadsheet and send them the data. This created significant inefficiencies.”

Manual Agreement Creation

EnviroVent’s process for agreeing on rebate terms traditionally began with reviewing the previous year’s terms. "We’d start with last year’s terms and, if we had any growth, we’d increase that to reflect the current year’s performance," explains Knight. From there, the sales team would engage in a series of discussions. "There’d be conversations between our sales managers or senior sales guys, and they’d come to an agreement, which we would then model," he adds.

Once terms were agreed upon, EnviroVent would generate a document in PDF format and send it to the customer for signing. While this approach was paperless, he admits, "It was old-fashioned, time-consuming and prone to error." The process relied heavily on manual steps that could benefit from modernization.  

Complex Agreements

EnviroVent manages a complex structure of rebate agreements at different levels, particularly with national wholesalers. Knight describes the process: "For a national wholesaler, we’d have one national agreement, one document that covers all the terms. But within that, there would be around 20 different regions and 300 individual branches."

While they didn't create individual agreements for each branch, Knight explains that they still needed to communicate specific terms to the customer. "We didn't create separate agreements for every branch, but these branches all had terms that needed to be communicated." To streamline this, EnviroVent developed a two-step approach. "We’d make the national agreement with all the terms and then create a simpler, blank agreement that the sales manager could use to type in the target for that particular customer and send it to that branch," Knight says.

This process allowed the team to efficiently manage large-scale agreements while ensuring that regional and branch-specific terms were clearly communicated to the customers.

Underpayments

EnviroVent faced challenges with rebate underpayments due to manual processes and human error. This complexity led to customers relying on EnviroVent to provide rebate details, with discrepancies only being flagged if the rebate amount appeared lower than expected. "A lot of them relied on us to tell them, and usually they would only double-check it if the amount was lower than what they thought they were owed," Knight says.

Disputes

EnviroVent has experienced disputes over rebate calculations, particularly at the end of the year. Knight explains, "We would sometimes get to the end of the year, and a customer would think they were owed a rebate. They may have misunderstood the agreement or believed they had hit a target but included the wrong element of turnover."

"It was a misalignment between what the rebate should be and what the customers understood or what was communicated to them." He believes that having a clearer system will help prevent these issues moving forward. "Hopefully, with having one source of truth, especially through the partner dashboard, we’ll be able to avoid these disputes going into next year."

The Platform

Why Enable?

Before selecting Enable, EnviroVent explored several options. "We did look at a few alternatives, including one from a provider we already use for another product," says Knight. "We thought it would be a good option to go for, but they didn’t have the agreement signing and sharing feature." This was critical, as generating and managing agreements was a large part of their process, not only for operational efficiency but also for maintaining control and governance. "Having a single source of truth for agreements was key," Knight emphasizes.

While other platforms could handle loading terms and automating rebate calculations, they didn’t address the challenge of communicating terms to customers or offering a unified sign-off platform. "That was the main reason we went with Enable," Knight explains.

He continues, “We wanted Enable to help with three main areas. First, the automation of calculations, which is now streamlined once we have all the training programs defined. Second, the signing and approval of agreements, which is now managed through Enable. Finally, we aimed to enhance the visibility of agreements and reporting. We spent considerable time configuring advanced reports to ensure that information is both accessible and accurate for our sales network.”

Knowledgeable and Responsive Team

Knight comments, "We found that throughout the development and rollout, the team has been really responsive and easy to work with. The support has been great—no complaints at all. Everyone's been really good. The Enable team have done everything they could to help facilitate our needs. As for testing and providing feedback, they’ve been very knowledgeable. I couldn’t really ask for more, to be honest."

Partner Dashboard

The Partner Dashboard is a powerful feature within Enable designed to enhance collaboration and transparency between trading partners. This tool enables users to share real-time updates on current progress, ensuring that all parties are informed and engaged in the rebate process.  

Knight highlights the significance of this feature, stating, “The introduction of the Partner Dashboard will allow customers to independently check their information without needing to reach out for assistance.” This independence not only streamlines the flow of information but also empowers customers to access the data they need at their convenience.  

Information For Sales On-Demand

The primary focus for improving visibility is to empower each sales manager with direct access to rebate data, including agreements and performance metrics related to their targets. Currently, they lack this access, which limits their ability to self-manage their rebate information.  

According to Knight, "They find it helpful, although they are still figuring out some of the features. We are definitely gaining more access to the data we need compared to before."

As the rollout continues, it will primarily benefit the distribution sales managers, especially given the complexity of agreements with electrical wholesalers. The main advantage, as highlighted by another team member, is that "they will have instant access to the data they need, eliminating the delays associated with requesting information from the internal team."

Advanced Reporting

At EnviroVent, there are two main purposes for using advanced reporting. First, the team has created a bespoke report that enables the sales team to view the performance and spend of their accounts in a format that suits their needs. Knight states, "This allows us to tailor the information specifically for the sales team."

The second purpose is to extract data from Enable for additional reporting across the business. This data is crucial for accruals and other financial analyses. According to Knight, "We perform a suite of reporting on profitability that requires detailed rebate data, which previously only existed in our spreadsheet but now resides in Enable."

The reporting process is not going to change, but the source of the data has improved significantly. As Knight notes, "If we're enhancing accuracy and control overall in rebates, then the data we report will also improve in accuracy."

Auditing Rebates

With Enable serving as a single source of truth, EnviroVent will be able to conduct audits more efficiently.

Knight tells us, “The audits themselves will be much easier. In my role, we have some departments operating within a custom-built system with excellent, reportable data, making those audits straightforward. In contrast, other departments handle things in more disjointed and siloed ways, leading to more complex audits. By having all reportable data in one place, along with better controls over the agreements and terms, we can significantly enhance the quality of our audits, likely improving both the outcomes and results."

Efficient Time Savings

Knight says, “Each year, the process of creating agreements will save considerable time, as there will be no need to generate and distribute PDFs. The most substantial impact will be for the sales network. By granting them direct access to their own data, they will no longer have to wait for internal teams to provide the information, leading to greater efficiency overall.”

Scaling Rebate Programs

Knight emphasized, "What Enable will allow us to do is to scale our rebates effectively. The issue we've faced over the past few years is that as we've grown and taken on new customers, the nature of those customers has changed. As our business with them expands, the demands of our rebates and their complexity also evolve."  

He added, "Having one system where we can manage all that is going to help us scale. Previously, every new type of rebate line or element of complexity added a significant potential for error in the spreadsheet we were using. With Enable, the defined program elements make things a lot more manageable."

Taking Full Control of Rebates and Agreements

Knight emphasizes that "it was always a question of quality and control around rebates," which led EnviroVent to seek a solution that would reduce the risk of human and manual errors associated with their previous spreadsheet approach. "We wanted something that we could define and wouldn't be open to those kinds of errors. Having the same agreement where the terms entered into Enable are the same terms that the customer signs off in the same software ensures control."