A Sales Incentive Plan (SIP) is a business tool use to motivate and compensate a sales professional (or Sales Agent) to meet goals or metrics over a specific period of time, usually broken into a plan for a fiscal quarter or fiscal year. A SIP is very similar to a commission plan, however a SIP can incorporate sales metrics other than goods sold(or value of goods sold), which is traditionally how a commission plan is derived. Sales metrics used in a SIP are typically in the form of sales quotas (sometimes referred to as POS Shipments), new business opportunities and/or MBOs (Management by Objectives). A SIP is often an auxiliary form of compensation used to drive the independent action of the sales professional and is usually used in conjunction with a base salary.