Promotional Allowance Program Regulations

Understanding promotional allowance program regulations can be a bear, but if you want to design a market development funds (MDF) or Co-Op program that your corporate legal team and finance department will love, understand them you must.

This Incentive Insights takes a look at how the Robinson-Patman and Sarbanes-Oxley acts affect your promotional allowance programs.

The Robinson-Patman Act requires that a seller offer all competing resellers similar programs in a proportionately equal manner. But how does the legislation define key points in this statement such as “competing resellers” or “offer”?

Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) regulatory requirements address issues born out of the Enron and Worldcom scandals. A side effect of SOX is many marketers classify their reimbursement expenses as contra-revenue, which can show up as sales decreases when reporting revenue. A better solution is understanding how to categorize reimbursement expenses against SOX requirements.

Learn more when you read Incentive Insights: Promotional Allowance Program Regulations.

About the Author

Craig DeWolf, Perks WW VP, Marketing Enablement, has over 30 years of channel program and trade marketing experience spanning a variety of industries and distribution models including technology and consumer product companies. As Vice President, Marketing Enablement he provides a unique multi-industry perspective gleaned from a background working across agency, supplier, and vendor/manufacturer roles. Craig has engaged with key business partners and worked with a variety of clients on both channel and trade strategies and programs, including: AT&T, Apple, Avaya, Bridgestone Goodrich, Canon USA, Hewlett-Packard, Kraft, Oracle, Panasonic, Timex and Xerox. Immediately before joining Perks Worldwide, Craig held senior roles at Hawk Incentives, Hawkeye Channel, and CCI—a work history that shows his deep understanding of the channel space.