Agency manager: what they do, how they're paid, and what MAS holds them to

Titles vary by firm. Unit manager, group manager and agency manager are common, often in tiers, where a senior manager leads managers who lead advisers. Most keep their own clients too.

The job is four things: recruiting new advisers, getting them licensed and started, coaching them week by week, and supervising how they sell. Pay usually mixes their own commission with an override on their team's business, plus any bonuses in their contract.

MAS's word for this role is supervisor, and its balanced scorecard, in Notice FAA-N20, covers supervisors as well as advisers:

• If a manager is paid on variable income only, and so is their team, 60% of the manager's variable income each quarter is measured against how their advisers are graded.
• On each adviser's business, the manager gets the same percentage of that measured portion as the adviser does. If an adviser keeps 75% of theirs, so does the manager.
• A manager in a higher tier who's paid on an adviser's business counts as that adviser's supervisor too.

Under MAS's Guidelines FAA-G14, a manager graded Unsatisfactory should have their supervision reviewed, and their firm may cut their team or stop them recruiting. Two Unsatisfactory quarters in a row keep them out of any supervisory role for at least a year.

In the US, "agency manager" often means someone who runs an independent agency's office: staff, service and sales. This page covers the manager who leads financial advisors.

A manager's week starts with who's slipping. Palby Sales Tracker for agency managers lists who has made no entry for 3 days, then who's furthest behind their weekly goal, then who's trending down over 30 days.

• MAS Notice FAA-N20, the Balanced Scorecard Framework, last revised 29 December 2025, paragraphs 5.1 to 5.3, read 2 November 2026
• MAS Guidelines FAA-G14, last revised 29 December 2025, paragraph 19, read 2 November 2026