A commission spreadsheet needs the right columns to be trusted, and it breaks in a few known places. For a small team on a flat plan, a sheet is fine. It is free and quick. This guide covers what to put in it, where it falls apart, and when to move on. If you just want to run this month’s numbers without building a sheet, the free commission calculator does it with no signup.
The columns you need
Here is a template you can copy straight into a spreadsheet, one row per deal. The first six columns cover a flat plan. Add the rest only if your plan needs them.
| Column | What it holds | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Deal name | The deal, so the row is traceable | Acme renewal |
| Rep | Who earns on it | Sam |
| Close date | When the deal was won | 2026-03-04 |
| Deal amount | The value commission is based on | 20,000 |
| Commission rate | The rate for that deal | 5 percent |
| Commission earned | Deal amount times rate | 1,000 |
| Paid date | When the client paid, for pay on collection | 2026-04-01 |
| Amount paid | How much has come in so far | 10,000 |
| Running total | The rep’s total for the period so far, for tiers | 68,000 |
| Split percent | This rep’s share of the deal, for splits | 50 percent |
| Second rep | The other person on a split | Alex |
| Clawback | A reversal from an earlier period | -500 |
Keep one row per deal. If a deal is split, give each rep their own row, so the shares are easy to check.
Where spreadsheets break
Three plan shapes are where a sheet turns fragile:
Pay on collection. Close date is a fixed number. Paid status changes all month, so the sheet is never finished. Every payment means going back in and updating rows, and a stale sheet pays on money that has not arrived. See how to pay commission on collection in HubSpot.
Tiers that span the target. When one deal takes a rep from below target to above it, you have to split that deal at the line, part at the base rate and part at the accelerator. The formula for that is fragile, and one reordered row breaks it. See how to calculate tiered commission.
Splits and clawbacks. Splits mean double-entry, and it is easy to end up with shares that do not add to 100. Clawbacks mean reaching back into a period you already closed and reversing a payment by hand, which is the step that gets forgotten.
When to stop using a spreadsheet
A few honest signs the sheet has run its course:
- The pay run takes hours. If you spend a morning rebuilding it every period, the time is now worth more than a tool.
- Reps argue with the number. If people do not trust a total they cannot follow, the sheet has stopped doing its main job.
- You have found a wrong cell more than once. One bad formula that paid the wrong amount is a warning.
- Your plan grew. The moment you added collection, tiers, splits, or clawbacks, the sheet started fighting you.
For where to go next, see the best commission tracking for HubSpot and can HubSpot calculate commissions.
Where Provikka fits
Provikka is for the point where the sheet stops working. It reads your HubSpot deals, applies your plan, including collection, tiers, splits, and clawbacks, and shows each rep the math so there is nothing to argue about. It is early and the waitlist is open.
Before that, the free commission calculator runs a real pay period for you, so you can see your numbers without a sheet at all. No signup.