Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Sales Administrative Associate

🎯 Role Definition

The Sales Administrative Associate is a detail-oriented, proactive member of the commercial organization who ensures sales processes run smoothly by maintaining accurate customer and order records, preparing quotes and contracts, coordinating logistics and billing, running regular sales reporting, and providing frontline support to sales representatives and customers. The role combines hands-on transactional work (order processing, invoicing, CRM updates) with analytical and coordination tasks (sales reporting, forecasting support, process improvement) to maximize sales efficiency and customer satisfaction.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Sales Assistant or Sales Support Representative with 0–2 years of experience
Customer Service Representative in B2B or B2C environments
Administrative Assistant or Office Coordinator supporting commercial teams

Advancement To:

Sales Coordinator or Senior Sales Administrative Associate
Sales Operations Analyst or Revenue Operations Coordinator
Account Manager or Inside Sales Representative (client-facing advancement)

Lateral Moves:

Customer Success Specialist
Marketing Coordinator (campaign support and lead operations)
Procurement or Vendor Management Coordinator

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Maintain and continuously update CRM records (e.g., Salesforce, HubSpot) with accurate contact, opportunity, quote, order and contract information to ensure the sales pipeline reflects real-time status for forecasting and reporting.
Create, review and distribute sales quotes, proposals and pricing documents using company pricing rules and CPQ or quoting tools, ensuring accuracy of discounts, terms and product configurations before submission to customers.
Process sales orders and order changes in the ERP system (e.g., SAP, NetSuite, Dynamics) including creation, validation, routing for approvals and tracking through fulfillment to completion.
Prepare and deliver customer invoices and credit memos, reconcile billing discrepancies with finance, and follow up on billing queries to maintain healthy receivables and accurate revenue recognition.
Coordinate with operations, logistics and fulfillment teams to ensure timely shipment scheduling, backorder management, and resolution of delivery exceptions or customer complaints.
Generate, distribute and present recurring and ad-hoc sales reports and dashboards (pipeline health, bookings, revenue by product/region, quota attainment) to sales leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.
Support monthly and quarterly sales forecasting by collecting booked orders, pending approvals and sales rep input, consolidating data and highlighting risk items to leadership.
Track and administer sales commission, incentive and compensation documentation by compiling deal data, liaising with payroll/compensation teams and validating payouts.
Manage inbound customer and internal sales requests via phone, email and CRM cases, providing timely responses, escalating technical or contractual issues and ensuring a high level of service.
Prepare and maintain sales contracts and master service agreements, coordinate signature routing (electronic or physical), and ensure contract terms are accurately captured in systems and shared with legal as needed.
Facilitate new customer onboarding by collecting required documentation, setting up customer accounts in billing and ERP systems, and coordinating first orders and welcome communications.
Maintain accurate product master data, price lists, discount schedules and promotional pricing in sales systems and internal reference documents to ensure consistency across quotes and orders.
Serve as the primary point of contact for sales collateral requests, maintain up-to-date price sheets, spec documents and sales presentations, and collaborate with marketing to refresh materials as needed.
Coordinate sales meetings, trainings and territory launches by managing logistics, preparing agendas, compiling presentation materials and tracking post-meeting action items.
Conduct routine data hygiene activities including deduplication, normalization and enrichment of CRM records and customer master files to support reliable segmentation and targeting.
Liaise with finance to resolve order-to-cash exceptions, disputed invoices, and credit holds, ensuring timely resolution to prevent sales disruption and maintain strong customer relationships.
Administer sample kits, demo units and promotional inventory for the sales team, track unit locations and manage replenishment requests to support effective field selling.
Monitor order status and proactively communicate updates, delays or special instructions to sales reps and customers to set expectations and reduce escalations.
Support pricing requests and special quote approvals by preparing business justification documentation, tracking approval workflows and ensuring approved terms are implemented correctly.
Assist sales leadership with territory management tasks such as account assignments, territory rebalancing data and CRM territory configuration to optimize coverage and quota fairness.
Compile competitive intelligence and win/loss feedback from the field into structured summaries that inform pricing, positioning and product development discussions.
Document and continuously improve sales administrative processes and standard operating procedures (SOPs), maintain a knowledge base for the sales team and train new hires on administrative workflows.
Ensure compliance with internal controls, audit requirements and corporate policies in all sales documentation and transactions, and support periodic internal and external audits.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc reporting and exploratory sales data analysis, including preparing pivot tables, custom reports and visual summaries to answer business questions.
Participate in cross-functional projects (CRM migrations, ERP enhancements, pricing system implementations) as a subject matter expert on sales process and system requirements.
Collaborate with marketing on lead routing rules, lead quality feedback and campaign performance to improve handoffs and conversion rates.
Assist in preparing quarterly business reviews (QBRs) and executive summaries with consolidated sales metrics and trend analysis.
Help coordinate customer events, trade shows and field promos by managing registrations, logistics and follow-up lead capture and assignment.
Conduct periodic audits of customer accounts, pricing tiers and discount usage to identify compliance gaps and opportunities for process tightening.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

CRM proficiency: Hands-on experience maintaining and reporting from Salesforce, HubSpot or equivalent CRM platforms, including creating reports, dashboards and managing opportunities.
ERP/order management: Practical experience processing orders and managing customer master records in systems such as NetSuite, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics or equivalent.
Advanced Excel skills: Strong ability with VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, pivot tables, conditional formatting and basic macros for data manipulation and reporting.
Quoting/CPQ tools: Experience using CPQ or quoting systems to prepare accurate proposals and manage product configurations, pricing and approvals.
Billing & invoicing workflow knowledge: Familiarity with invoice generation, credit memos, accounts receivable reconciliation and working with finance teams.
Sales reporting & analytics: Competence in building sales dashboards and extracting actionable insights from sales data to support forecasting and decision making.
Document and contract management: Experience preparing, routing and storing sales contracts, NDAs and SOWs using e-signature tools (DocuSign, Adobe Sign).
Communication platforms: Comfortable using Microsoft 365 (Outlook, Teams, Word, PowerPoint), Google Workspace and collaboration tools for cross-functional coordination.
Data hygiene and governance: Proven ability to perform deduplication, data cleansing and maintain accurate master data for reliable CRM segmentation.
Process improvement & SOP creation: Experience documenting workflows, improving transactional efficiency and training users on administrative tools and processes.

Soft Skills

Exceptional attention to detail and accuracy in transactional work and data entry.
Strong organizational and time-management abilities to juggle multiple priorities under tight deadlines.
Clear, professional written and verbal communication skills for customer and internal stakeholder interactions.
Customer-centric mindset with a focus on proactive problem resolution and positive service outcomes.
Ability to work collaboratively across sales, operations, finance and marketing with cross-functional empathy.
Analytical thinking and comfort translating data into practical recommendations for sales leaders.
Discretion and integrity when handling sensitive contract, pricing and customer information.
Adaptability to changing processes, new systems and evolving sales programs.
Initiative and resourcefulness to identify process gaps and propose workable solutions.
Patience and diplomacy for negotiating customer and internal escalations.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:
High school diploma or GED; equivalent work experience in sales support or administrative roles will be considered.

Preferred Education:
Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Sales, Finance, or a related field.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Business Administration
Marketing
Finance or Accounting
Communications
Supply Chain / Logistics

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:
1–3 years of experience in sales administrative support, sales operations, order management or customer service in a B2B or B2C environment.

Preferred:
3–5+ years of progressive experience supporting sales teams, with demonstrated competency in CRM/ERP systems, order-to-cash processes, and sales reporting.