Proper revenue management is crucial to any business’ survival. Billing automation not only makes processes quicker and streamlined, but also streamlines organizational workflows so that companies can focus on value-added services and cater to customer centric business activities which will pay off in the long run to build greater client loyalty and a unique brand reputation.
Automating the billing processes ensures that the company’s resources are focused on growth creation. Also automation helps in greater customization. Additionally, having a trust-worthy technology partner can aid businesses to capture greater revenue and achieve organizational goals faster.
Billing Options: Manual vs. Automated
In the post-pandemic world, the way in which businesses transact has changed significantly. Also, there is a more customer centric approach that every business follows to get an edge over competition.
Consumers globally are looking for greater value for every penny they invest. This has given greater impetus to subscription-based businesses wherein usage-based billing is the norm than an exception which resulted in the requirement of Subscription Management Solutions for the tension-free management of the business.
So, businesses have to be flexible enough to give consumers one-time payments, or subscription-based service roll outs, or even usage-based invoicing and billing.
When your business is in its infant stage, handling a couple of customers and their changing demands may not be much of a hassle. But imagine as you scale, as your clientele expands, maintaining track of each customer’s details can be cumbersome and would require humongous resource investment.
These are reasons strong enough to invest in automated invoicing and billing solutions.
What is automated billing?
Automated billing is the process of generating invoices and sending them to customers using software.
As long as you have a very small clientele, manual billing will suffice. Manual billing is when your businesses use word processors or pen and paper to bill consumers.
When you have a larger customer base to cater to, automated billing is recommended so that a lot of overhead costs are reduced, and your finance teams’ work-life balance will not be disrupted.
How automated billing expedites your business
Since we are done with what automated and manual billing are and discussed the pros and cons of both billing, let’s see how automated billing can expedite business processes?
1. Capture more revenue sources
2. Manage multiple pricing methodologies hassle-free
3. Ensure greater market penetration
4. Dunning management to stop revenue leakage
5. Greater business data insights
Capture more revenue sources
As a business expands, it is necessary to come up with more revenue-generating business ideas to not only attract new customers, but also retain existing ones.
One of the tried and tested business strategies is to explore a variety of product families. This will help your business to pander to a wider group of clients. Service and product bundling is another effective strategy.
Another actionable method is to cross-sell and up-sell products, or updated features of an already existing product/service.
Manage multiple pricing methodologies hassle-free
Emboldened by the attractive benefits of subscription-model businesses, several entrepreneurs and business owners have switched to subscriptions.
It can be flat rate subscription, usage-based pricing and billing, per-unit and one-time pricing, tired pricing, etc.
Completely understanding your greater business strategy and goals and then based on that adopting a gamut of pricing models is crucial for your business’ steady growth and expansion.
It is extremely important to ensure periodical review of pricing models to see if it is empowering your business to achieve business goals and objectives and is contributing effectively to the organization's vision.
Ensure greater market penetration
Equipping your business with tech-powered solutions to accept online payments will ensure greater market penetration.
It will help you to expand your business to a wider client base and your products and services will get greater exposure in very limited time.
However, internal business is not easy to carry on. Each country will have its own regulations, services charge cuts, and compliance standards that have to be abided to.
Also, rampant online fraud is another issue faced by businesses. Those challenges are many, it can be resolved easily by engaging a payment processing service provider who is particularly specialized in international payments.
Dunning management to stop revenue leakage
Revenue leakage is a serious concern that many businesses are crippled with but it could be easily dealt with minor changes in work strategies. Revenue leakage occurs due to inefficient systems, especially so in the invoicing and billing processes.
Examples of revenue leakage include inaccurate billing or an erroneous discount applied and the likes. Dunning management is the process of identifying and then using measures to fix those leaks.
Billing automation is the panacea to revenue leakage. It basically captures all errors before it can occur.
Greater business data insights
Data is an important factor when it comes to important business decisions. Business data helps in identifying any problem that is detrimental to the business, identify the available remedies, and then put into action the right course of redressal.
Business data collection can be implemented via interviews, surveys, and group observations and social experiments etc. But all these methods, albeit effective, can be heavily time-consuming and labor-rich.
This is where automated billing can save the day. Apart from making the process simple and time-saving, data collection using technology-empowered solutions will ensure greater efficiency!
