Cadillac sold about 49,000 EVs in 2025, 28% of the brand’s volume, more than any luxury badge but Tesla by the brand’s own count. Then the $7,500 federal credit expired on September 30 and fourth-quarter GM EV deliveries fell 43%. A Cadillac store’s pay run absorbed the whole arc: volume tiers that spiked in the pull-forward quarter and reset into a crater, a desk that flipped from lease-default to finance overnight, clearance spiffs from two different payers, a service drive where flag income arrives in fewer, bigger, warranty-priced repair orders, and at a few stores, a hand-built flagship whose commission lands a year after the handshake. WageTime runs that year as ordinary payroll: computed, dated, documented.
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A Cadillac store’s payroll problems aren’t the dealership generics with a crest on top. They come from a network that went all-in on electric, a federal date that split the demand curve, and a flagship that sells like a commission and delivers like a construction project. Every one is unpaid office time or a liability compounding quietly.
Cadillac moved 18,383 EVs in the third quarter of 2025, roughly double the prior year, as buyers raced the credit’s expiration. Volume tiers hit ceilings early, gross commissions spiked, and every spreadsheet that reconciles tier money got a record month to survive.
After the deadline, GM’s EV deliveries dropped 43% and Lyriq fell by nearly half. Clearance units pay minis, tier schedules reset, and salespeople who cleared their draws in September started carrying balances in November that nobody flags until the year-end finals.
Clearing EV inventory brought employer clearance bonuses through payroll and manufacturer cash paid straight to salespeople. One is wages on your runs; the other never touches them. When both hit the same desk in the same week, the office referees the confusion.
While leased EVs qualified for the full credit, 56% of new EVs went out as leases. After September 30 the board turned finance and cash, and a close built around lease gross and its product stack started computing on front gross, reserve, and VSCs.
Roughly one in ten Cadillac stores can sell the hand-built flagship, built at about two per day and priced in the low $400,000s. The order books months before delivery, and the commission event lands in a different quarter than the handshake did.
Industry studies put the average EV repair order near $1,300 against $700 for gas, but there’s no oil-change filler between them. A flat-rate tech’s income arrives in fewer, larger, mostly warranty-time chunks, and week-to-week checks swing harder than on any gas drive.
Four of these become real product screens below, with sample store data. The rest get straight answers in the FAQ.
WageTime closes both halves of the cliff year from one ledger. Volume tiers compute on the quarter they were earned and pay on schedule; when the calendar flips to clearance, minis tally per deal, F&I nets its chargebacks, and draw offsets settle every running balance, with threshold flags that fire while a deficit is still small. The Q3 that pulled two quarters of EV buyers forward and the Q4 that closed on discounted inventory both land as computed pay runs, dated and documented, so nobody rebuilds the year in a workbook to explain a January paycheck. Off-cycle spiff runs cost nothing extra, and an unreconciled deal rolls forward instead of holding the whole close hostage. Every number stays tied to the deal and the period that produced it, so the audit trail of the strangest year the brand ever had is one export, not an archaeology project.
| Salesperson | Q3 comp (paid) | Oct net | Nov net | Balance | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| K. Emerson | $28,410 | $2,140 | $1,890 | $0.00 | Clear |
| D. Rousseau | $24,655 | $1,410 | $860 | −$930 | Watching |
| T. Nakamura | $21,980 | $780 | $410 | −$2,210 | Past threshold |
| A. Whitcomb | $19,340 | $1,150 | $640 | −$1,410 | Watching |
| M. Castellanos | $17,205 | $560 | $310 | −$2,730 | Past threshold |
Replaces the tier spreadsheet that dies at the reset, and the draw deficit that surfaces as a year-end surprise.
WageTime computes each deal on the basis its structure defines, which is exactly what the flip demanded. For three quarters the EV desk wrote leases, and the close ran on lease gross and its product stack; after September 30 the board turned finance and cash, with front gross, reserve, and a VSC stack carrying different chargeback exposure. The comp plan doesn’t get rebuilt when the mix inverts: every deal computes on its own structure, chargebacks net against the products that generated them, and per-deal detail stays attached to the number, so the month the desk flipped closes with the same one approval as the month before it. Draw offsets settle against the same running ledger either way, and threshold flags keep a slow clearance month from quietly digging a deficit the store discovers in February.
| Deal | Vehicle | Structure | Basis comp | Earned |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #7314 | Optiq Luxury | Lease | $1,240 lease gross | $310 |
| #7322 | Escalade Premium | Finance | $4,980 front + reserve | $1,245 |
| #7329 | Lyriq Sport | Finance | $2,360 front gross | $590 |
| #7333 | XT5 Premium Luxury | Cash | $1,720 front gross | $430 |
| #7340 | Vistiq Sport | Lease | $2,040 lease gross | $510 |
Replaces the comp plan rebuilt by hand every time the desk’s structure mix moves.
WageTime treats a Celestiq order the way the deal actually behaves: as an open item that rolls forward until it reconciles. Cadillac authorized roughly 10% of its dealers to sell the hand-built flagship, and an order can sit in build for months at a price in the low $400,000s. The roll-forward carries it across periods without stalling anyone else’s close; when the car delivers, the commission books on that period’s run, or an off-cycle run the same week at no extra cost, with taxes handled like any other wages. And because delivery-team pay at these stores typically skews salaried plus a delivery-event bonus, those are ordinary pay codes, not exceptions someone maintains by hand. The rest of the store’s payroll never notices: the flagship deal is one open item in the ledger, not a special process the office runs on the side.
| Deal | Vehicle | Opened | Status | Commission |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #C-102 | Celestiq commission (order) | Feb 14 | Delivered Nov 6 | $19,500 |
| #C-104 | Celestiq commission (order) | Jun 2 | In build | rolls forward |
| #7361 | Escalade IQ Sport 2 | Oct 28 | Funding hold | rolls forward |
| #7358 | Escalade-V | Oct 24 | Reconciled | $2,160 |
| #7355 | CT5-V Blackwing | Oct 21 | Reconciled | $1,485 |
Replaces the sticky note tracking a $400,000 order, and the argument about which quarter it pays in.
WageTime splits every tech’s flags into warranty and customer-pay buckets at their own rates, because on an EV-heavy drive the split is the paycheck. A gas quick lane fills the gaps between big jobs; an EV drive doesn’t have one, so flag income arrives in fewer, larger, mostly warranty-priced repair orders, and week-to-week checks swing harder. Imported hours land matched to the pay period (we import clock and flag hours so there’s no double entry), the wage-floor test runs on every tech every period, and a short week becomes a documented true-up on the run before the check goes out. Certification premiums stay bound to credentials with effective dates, so the EV-trained rate is right on the same check. Tell us your DMS on the demo and we’ll confirm the exact flow for your setup.
| Tech | ROs | Avg flag/RO | Warranty flag | CP flag | Effective |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| J. Marchetti #04 | 11 | 4.9 | 33.8 | 20.1 | $41.20 |
| P. Delacroix #08 | 9 | 5.2 | 30.4 | 16.4 | $36.75 |
| H. Yoon #12 | 8 | 4.6 | 24.9 | 11.9 | $30.10 |
| R. Stanfield #15 | 14 | 2.1 | 12.6 | 16.8 | $22.40 |
| L. Moreau #18 | 12 | 1.6 | 8.3 | 10.9 | $15.90 |
Replaces the assumption that this period looks like the last one, and the floor check done from memory.
About 586 US locations as of September 2025, per ScrapeHero’s count, the smallest network at GM. Every store that stayed past 2020 installed roughly $200,000 of EV charging and service equipment, and by May 2026 GM counted 100,000+ Cadillac EVs on US roads. Electric was 28% of the brand’s 2025 sales.
Buyers pulled purchases forward: Cadillac delivered a record 18,383 EVs in the third quarter of 2025, roughly double the prior year, per GM Authority. Then fourth-quarter GM EV deliveries fell 43% and Lyriq fell 46%, per InsideEVs and Cadillac Society. The brand still finished 2025 up 8.3% at 173,515 vehicles, its best year in a decade per GM.
Yes. Volume tiers compute on the quarter they were earned, clearance months tally minis per deal, F&I nets its chargebacks, and draw offsets settle each running balance with threshold flags, so a deficit that opens after the tiers reset shows up in numbers, not in a year-end argument.
The commission close has to. A lease deal and a finance deal put different numbers in front of the comp plan: lease gross and its product stack versus front gross, reserve, and a VSC stack, each with its own chargeback exposure. WageTime computes every deal on the basis its structure defines, so a finance-heavy October closes as cleanly as a lease-heavy August.
As a roll-forward. The open deal carries across periods without stalling the close, and when the car delivers, the commission books on that period’s run or an off-cycle run the same week, at no extra cost. One check can carry more than a normal month of gross; taxes are handled on the run like any other wages.
Your payroll runs what the store owes: employer spiffs and clearance bonuses are wages on your runs, and off-cycle runs cost nothing extra. Money the manufacturer pays salespeople directly is the manufacturer’s program and never touches your payroll. The close’s per-person detail shows exactly what the store itself paid, which is the number that settles the confusion.
$50 per month per company plus $8 per month per person paid that month, no contracts, cancel anytime. A 46-person standalone Cadillac store runs $418 for the month: $50 base plus $368 in per-person fees. Runs are unlimited, so clearance-spiff runs and a Celestiq delivery check cost nothing extra, and year-end W-2s and 1099s are included.
October’s commission board, the draw ledger after the tiers reset, a fortnight of EV-lane flag hours, the Celestiq order that still hasn’t delivered. Twenty minutes against a live demo store with a payroll specialist. If WageTime can’t close the year that September 30 split in half, you’ll know before the call ends.
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