Agent fee – is there one other approach?

Two or 3 times a 12 months, the dreaded reminder that the subsequent a number of days and weeks will probably be full of a number of spreadsheets (that’s if you will get the info in a single piece), a ridiculous variety of emails, forwards and backwards between brokers, recruitment workers and finance and copious quantities of hysteria of what can and may go mistaken.

With the massive surge in agent purposes and enrolments, this drawback has grown in magnitude for therefore many.

Getting in proper

Signing off tens of millions of kilos in fee funds is rarely taken frivolously and I had definitely been reminded of previous errors, even when they weren’t mine. Paying the mistaken quantity of fee or the mistaken agent is simply the tip of the iceberg. Understanding the fee step thresholds, share caps, bespoke commissions and investigating any circumstances of a number of claims, used to make me wish to bury my head within the sand.

On high of that, the bodily act of sending out confirmed (as I noticed it) lists to brokers meant a return to playschool. Taking display screen photographs of lists, saving them onto drives after which emailing them to brokers (and receiving infinite bounce backs), meant fee season was going to be a nightmare, at a time after I needed to begin touring to advertise the subsequent consumption.

So, what’s the choice?

On the College of Central Lancashire, I regarded lengthy and onerous for any resolution to this vital, however time consuming and irritating a part of my job. What I got here throughout was a standalone, cloud-based software program which promised to make the method a breeze.

SAMS Pay was the brainchild of Shamim Sarkar (not my alias!). Shamim had been working an company based mostly out of Sheffield for a few years, following which he began an edtech firm, SAMS International. The concept was to create software program, bespoke for our business from a spot of expertise.

Shamim knew how troublesome it was to receives a commission by universities, the infinite negotiations and delays, along with missed commissions. What if universities might make it simple?

The software program goals to make fee processing clear, quick and correct. And I imagine it does what it says on the tin. That’s why I labored with SAMS International to implement the answer at UCLan, lengthy earlier than I knew I used to be going to work for them.

Simple to make use of

The software program is straightforward and straightforward. Brokers have entry to add lists, universities add their enrolment report and hey presto, the system tells you who’s due what fee, while flagging up all these college students who didn’t enrol. The perfect factor is, everybody can see what’s going on, with out having to ship a single e mail because the system sends out notifications to all events at each stage.  Implementing it, was simply as easy and being standalone meant that we had management.

The most important problem that I confronted, was getting brokers to undertake the brand new approach of working. Nevertheless, as confidence grew, so did engagement.

To seek out out extra, head to the SAMS Pay web site and if you’re feeling the ache, e book a demo!

Concerning the creator: This can be a sponsored publish from Shamim Ghani, Gross sales & Advertising Director, SAMS International. Shamim has over 20 years’ expertise in worldwide pupil recruitment and joined SAMS International in 2023 having spent 5 years as Head of Worldwide Tasks on the College of Huddersfield and nearly 2 years as Affiliate Director, Worldwide Recruitment at UCLan. At each universities, he was the agent lead and answerable for agent fee processing and log out.