SANDLER PARTNERS WEST COAST SUMMIT — Sandler Partners says it has recovered a hefty sum of money for its subagents.

The master agent/distributor announced Tuesday that its Commissions Integrity Program has restored $5 million in commissions to partners since the program’s inception in 2013. Sandler launched the program to proactively monitor commissions and sales incentives. The company contrasts this approach to that of other master agents, whose subagents take it upon themselves to log missing sales performance incentive funds (SPIFs) and commissions.

Sandler Partners’ Alan Sandler

“At Sandler Partners, protecting our partners’ revenue is job one,” said Alan Sandler, managing partner of Sandler Partners. “We start by securing the strongest provider agreements in the business, and then we make sure that those providers live up to their promises by proactively ensuring that our partners are paid for the services they sell.”

The commissions team audits all deals, ranging from small to large, and transactional to opex. Drew Kenworthy, director of finance for Sandler Partners, said the group has recovered almost $1.3 million for its agents in 2018.

“I’m very proud of our commissions team,” Kenworthy said “They work incredibly hard, logging on average more than 800 tickets a week.”

Sandler announced in June 2016 that the program had reached $2 million after two years. The 2017 milestone was $3 million, meaning that commission recovery has grown at a higher rate in the last year to reach $5 million. The program also recovers future commission payments.

“It sounds simple, but it requires a team of commissions specialists working daily to identify errors and work with providers to recover unpaid funds for our partners,” Sandler said. “Our commission team’s painstaking work has even led to providers fixing systemic errors that impact the entire channel community. They deserve our thanks and congratulations on this latest milestone.”

Sandler made the announcement at its West Coast Partner Summit in Los Angeles.

Unpaid commissions have plagued master agents and their partners before. Colorado-based agent CostWatch took two master agents to court in 2000 to obtain $80,000 in withheld commissions. You can read the about relatively juicy case, which CostWatch won.

We’ve seen Sandler Partners win multiple sales awards from their vendors in 2018, including Masergy and TPx Communications. The company has also increased its workforce, most recently bolstering the Midwest team.