Spreadsheet Failure ModeManual Workflow
Root Operational Bottleneck
Bonus pool targets and achievement tiers are typed into a compensation committee sheet and re-entered into an HR calculation file, so finance accrues against one set of numbers while payroll pays against another.
Control Hazard & Audit Exposure
Accrued bonus expense and actual payouts diverge whenever a tier or KPI result changes in one file but not the other, producing true-ups after payroll runs that restate compensation expense.
Deterministic Software ReplacementClient-Owned Architecture
KPI Incentive Compensation Engine & Continuous Bonus Accrual
Incentive compensation engine that stores plan tiers and KPI targets once, reads actual KPI results from source systems, and accrues bonus expense continuously from the same rules that drive payout.
Continuous Assertion Rule
Plan assertion: accrual and payout must compute from the same plan version and the same KPI result records, and a payout that differs from the final accrual requires a recorded plan or result change.
