Sr Incentive Compensation Specialist

Company Name

Overview

Location: Memphis, TN (on-site)

The Senior Incentive Compensation Specialist is a senior individual contributor responsible for the day-to-day administration and processing of the Company’s commission and incentive compensation payments. This position performs the work required to calculate, validate, reconcile, correct, and prepare incentive payments for payroll.

The position independently evaluates payment issues, interprets approved plan terms and administrative requirements, determines the appropriate treatment of transactions and exceptions, and resolves non-routine matters within established authority. This role works closely with Compensation, Finance, Payroll, Human Resources, IT, Sales, Operations, and field teams to ensure incentive payments are accurate, timely, and properly supported.

This position does not supervise employees or direct the work of others. It does not have final responsibility for incentive plan design, compensation strategy, budgeting, forecasting, or financial modeling.

Responsibilities

• Performs recurring commission and incentive compensation payment cycles, including data validation, calculation processing, reconciliations, adjustments, corrections, and payroll-file preparation.
• Reviews and interprets approved incentive compensation plans, payment provisions, and administrative requirements to determine how transactions, exceptions, and employee payments should be processed.
• Maintains employee eligibility, plan assignments, rates, goals, thresholds, hierarchies, and other required incentive compensation information.
• Reviews data from sales, ticketing, HCM, payroll, and other source systems and identifies missing, incomplete, inconsistent, or inaccurate information.
• Performs pre- and post-calculation reviews, reconciliations, audits, and quality-control checks to ensure payments are accurate, authorized, and ready for payroll.
• Independently investigates payment discrepancies, unusual calculation results, employee concerns, and processing exceptions; identifies root causes and determines or recommends the appropriate resolution.
• Processes approved adjustments, corrections, reversals, and other payment-related transactions and maintains the required supporting documentation.
• Responds to commission and incentive compensation cases, payment questions, and disputes from employees, field teams, and business partners.
• Works with cross-functional business partners to investigate and resolve data, calculation, system, and payment issues.
• Identifies recurring payment issues, data-quality concerns, process weaknesses, and control gaps and recommends corrective action.
• Maintains procedures, calculation support, approvals, reconciliation records, case documentation, and other materials required to support a clear audit trail.
• Participates in system enhancements, process changes, implementations, and user acceptance testing related to incentive compensation.
• Independently prioritizes assigned work, balances competing deadlines, and communicates significant payment, financial, system, or control risks to the appropriate parties.
• Completes special projects and performs other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Associate degree in Business Administration, Finance, Accounting, Human Resources, or a related field required; bachelor’s degree preferred.
• Minimum of five years of direct commission or incentive compensation administration experience, including calculation cycles, adjustments, reconciliations, exception resolution, and payment issue resolution.
• Working knowledge of accounting and payroll principles, processes, and controls related to incentive compensation payments.
• Demonstrated ability to interpret incentive compensation plans, investigate complex payment issues, evaluate available information, and determine appropriate next steps.
• Strong critical-thinking, problem-solving, organizational, and prioritization skills.
• Exceptional attention to detail and ability to complete recurring, deadline-driven work accurately with limited supervision.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills and the ability to work effectively with employees and cross-functional business partners.
• Advanced Microsoft Excel skills and experience reviewing and reconciling large or complex data sets.
• Experience with Xactly Incent or another enterprise incentive compensation platform strongly preferred.