Look, we need to talk.

If you run an employee benefits brokerage — or you're the person keeping one afloat — there's a good chance you're spending somewhere between 20 and 30 hours every single month just tracking commissions. That's not a typo. Twenty to thirty hours. Every. Month.

One broker we spoke with called it "literally a full-time job." Another said her best employee quit because the work was "soul-crushing." And honestly? We get it.

But here's the thing: most of that pain is self-inflicted. Not because you're doing anything wrong on purpose, but because the benefits industry has normalized some truly wild habits when it comes to commission tracking. Habits that are burning out your team, leaking money, and keeping your agency stuck in 2015.

So let's break it down. Here are the seven biggest commission tracking mistakes employee benefits brokers make — and what the smartest agencies are doing instead.

1. You're Still Logging Into 25+ Carrier Websites By Hand

This is the big one. Every month, someone on your team sits down and manually logs into carrier portal after carrier portal — Aetna, Cigna, UnitedHealthcare, Guardian, you name it — just to download commission statements. Some portals require multi-factor authentication. Some have changed their layout since last month. Some just don't work on Tuesdays for reasons nobody can explain.

Here's the math on this: if you have 25 carriers and each login-plus-download takes 15 minutes, that's six and a quarter hours gone before you've even started reconciling anything.

What smart agencies do instead: They use automated commission tracking software that logs into carrier portals overnight, downloads every statement, and has everything waiting in one place by morning. Tools like BenefitsGuide's Carrier Connect handle multi-factor authentication and do the downloading while you sleep. Literally while you sleep.

2. You're Converting PDFs to Excel Like It's 2009

We know this dance. Carrier sends a PDF statement. You open it. You squint at the formatting. You copy-paste into Excel. Half the columns break. You spend 45 minutes fixing cell alignment before you can even look at the numbers.

This is not a good use of anyone's time. And it's definitely not a good use of the person you're paying $50 an hour to do it.

What smart agencies do instead: They use systems that automatically normalize commission data into a standard format — no PDF conversions, no broken spreadsheets, no tears. The data just flows in clean and ready to use.

3. You're Managing Commission Splits Client By Client

If your agency has producers — and of course it does — you're probably managing commission splits at the individual client level. That means every time a new client comes on, someone has to manually set up which producer gets what percentage. Got 500 clients and 20 producers? That's potentially thousands of split assignments to manage.

Now imagine a producer's split percentage changes. You have to go update every single client record. One by one. This is where errors breed and multiply.

What smart agencies do instead: They set commission split rules at the producer level, not the client level. With a rules-based commission split engine, you define each producer's split once, and every incoming commission statement follows those rules automatically. Change a percentage in one place, and it updates everywhere instantly.

4. You're Treating Your AMS Like It's Future-Proof (It's Not)

Here's something most brokers aren't thinking about yet, but should be: AI agents are coming to the insurance industry fast. They're going to automate renewals, flag missing commissions, handle service requests, and a whole lot more.

But here's the catch — AI agents need open platforms with accessible data to do their jobs. If your current agency management system locks your data in a proprietary silo with restricted API access, those AI tools can't help you. Your system becomes a dead end.

What smart agencies do instead: They build on platforms like Salesforce, where open APIs and a massive integration ecosystem mean AI agents can actually plug in and work. BenefitsGuide is built natively on Salesforce, which means it's not just ready for today's problems — it's ready for tomorrow's technology.

5. You're Losing $15,000 a Year and Don't Even Realize It

Let's do some quick math together. If your team spends 25 hours a month on manual commission work, and you value that time at $50 per hour, that's $1,250 a month. Over a year, that's $15,000 — gone. Not on growth. Not on client service. Just on data entry a machine should be handling.

And that doesn't even count the cost of errors. One wrong split assignment can mean revenue going to the wrong person, and fixing it eats up even more hours.

What smart agencies do instead: They automate the entire commission workflow — from carrier download to reconciliation to split assignment to reporting — and reinvest those hours (and dollars) into actually growing the business.

6. You're Running Your Agency on Five Disconnected Systems

Quick inventory check: How many systems are you using right now? Your AMS for some things. Excel for tracking. Email for communication. Maybe Outlook for email and calendar and a project management app for other pieces. Sticky notes for the stuff that falls through every crack.

When your data lives in five places, nobody trusts any of it. You can't get a clear picture of your pipeline, your revenue, or your team's workload. Scaling means hiring more people to manage more chaos.

What smart agencies do instead: They consolidate everything into one unified platform where commission tracking, project management, client service, reporting, and workflows all live together. One system. One source of truth. Zero chaos.

7. You're Waiting for the "Right Time" to Fix This

This is the sneakiest mistake of all. You know things aren't working. You've thought about making a change. But renewal season is coming, or you just finished renewal season, or someone's on vacation, or the budget isn't there yet, or... you get the idea.

Meanwhile, your best people are burning out, errors are piling up, and your competitors who made the switch six months ago are already growing faster with fewer staff.

There's never a perfect time. But there is a cost to waiting — and it's $15,000 a year plus your team's sanity.

What smart agencies do instead: They commit to a six-week implementation, schedule ten 30-minute management training calls, and start seeing results almost immediately. The agencies that made the leap say their only regret is not doing it sooner.

Ready to Stop the Commission Chaos?

Look, if even two of these mistakes hit close to home, you're not alone. Most employee benefits agencies are dealing with the same headaches. The difference is that some are choosing to fix it.

BenefitsGuide is the AI-ready business operating system built on Salesforce that automates your commission tracking, eliminates manual data entry, and gives your agency one unified platform to run everything. Your business. One system. Zero chaos.

• Click here to schedule an introductory call and see it for yourself.
• Your team will thank you. Your producers will thank you. And honestly? Your future self will thank you too.