Bill BrownFounder of ServiceTitan Hacks community (9k+ pros) | INC 5000 Contractor | Helping contractors win with AI & Automation

When Commissions Incentivize Bad Data 💸📉

3 Jul 2025

Watch on YouTube

A short YouTube monologue explaining how commission structures can create perverse incentives for technicians: when commissions are paid on job profitability, technicians may be incentivized to omit attaching materials/purchase orders (or to misreport them) so their reported profitability is higher and they receive larger commissions, which harms data accuracy and company profitability.

A lot of times companies are paying commissions off of the profitability of the job. So in a lot of cases, the technicians, they are decent advised to attach those purchase orders because then their materials are down and they get paid a higher commission. So it's almost like a double edged sword where you were expecting them to do it, but at the same time they're decent advised to do it because they get paid more if they don't attach those materials.