Do your billing processes consist of an endless supply of spreadsheets and countless hours of manual labor? Or perhaps you’ve packed away your billing paper trail in favor of an in-house billing system. While a step in the right direction, you probably found that a billing system can’t provide maximum value when working in isolation. Big or small, private or public, one of the most critical (if not the most critical), activities of running your subscription-based business is billing. Cloud billing software offers numerous benefits and ultimately enables recurring revenue growth. Because without efficient and error-free billing, your recurring revenue company puts itself at risk of leaving money on the table.
What is Cloud Billing Software?
To automate the entire quote-to-cash process, it needs to be seamlessly integrated with your up and downstream systems. This includes service delivery, financial, configure price quote (CPQ), customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), business process management (BPM), payment gateways, robotic process automation (RPA), and more. Here is where cloud billing software excels. With the right cloud-based billing platform you can automate workflows and seamlessly transfer data between systems.
Perhaps the most simplistic way to describe cloud billing software, as explained by ConnectionCafe, is the combination of cloud computing and electronic billing. Called revolutionary, it encompasses billing’s functional requirements like quotes, payment schemes, capturing recurring revenue, etc., as well as non-functional requirements such as security, scalability, and fault tolerance. From a functionality and benefits perspective, BillingPlatform delivers across every aspect – from sales through to recurring revenue recognition, with more efficiency and accuracy.
Why Billing is Better in the Cloud
In today’s highly competitive world, cloud migration is no longer optional – it’s a necessity. While companies have made great strides in migrating to the cloud, one of the last software applications being moved is billing. As Forrester senior analyst Tracy Woo explained, “It’s well understood using cloud is necessary to stay competitive.”
Recurring revenue isn’t synonymous with cloud billing software, but the benefits of cloud billing software for recurring revenue companies are plentiful and include:
- Faster time-to-market: Launch products, packages, and recurring revenue pricing models in hours instead of days.
- Error-free invoices: By eliminating manual, error-prone processes, you can deliver accurate invoices and ensure timely delivery.
- Reduced revenue leakage: Automation of tasks and business processes such as tracking late payments, alerting customers when payments are delinquent, implementing automated retry logic for expired credit cards, creating automatic notifications when credit cards are declined, and automating collections, dunning, approvals, invoicing, notifications, etc., reduces days sales outstanding (DSO) and revenue leakage.
- Improved data insights: Custom reports and dashboards provide increased visibility into operational performance and customer behavior – monthly recurring revenue (MRR), annual recurring revenue (ARR), usage, average revenue per user (ARPU), customer lifetime value (CLV), and churn – to better analyze performance for more insightful decision-making.
- Enhanced customer satisfaction: Seamless integration of cloud billing software and 3rd party systems provides a single source of truth that enables you to provide a unified customer view across self-service portals, eCommerce sites, sales, and support solutions.
- Efficient international business growth: While on-premises billing systems may have the ability to manage multiple currencies, languages, and payment methods, cloud billing software provides quick and confident expansion across geographies with localization (language, currency, number fields, tax providers, payment providers, etc.), multi-currency and multilingual billing, regional taxation, and global compliance regulation adherence.
Inherent to the cloud, you gain additional benefits like:
- Reduced CAPEX and OPEX: Costly on-site servers, upgrades, and IT support staff will become a thing of the past. On a less expensive note, cloud billing software enables you to electronically send invoices, reducing costs associated with paper, ink, envelopes, postage, and of course personnel.
- Improved data security: Cloud technology is frequently updated, the highest levels of security procedures are strictly maintained, and staff are kept apprised of the latest cybersecurity threats. Essentially, you won’t be solely responsible for system maintenance, computer crashes, or security breaches.
- Enhanced data recovery: In the event of a security breach and data is lost, cloud security provides fail-safes for better disaster recovery and business continuity.
- On-demand scalability: Business needs peak and wane, cloud-based systems provide the elasticity needed to quickly add or remove capacity.
- A virtual office: Provide employees with the ability to access data from anywhere at any time.
The Future of Cloud Billing Software is Here
Have you or are you in the process of migrating your other business applications to the cloud? Chances are the answer is yes. According to Gartner, 85% of enterprises will adopt a cloud-first principle by 2025, and BillingPlatform is here to help you make cloud billing a reality. From reducing IT costs and increasing efficiency to improving security and enhancing performance, shifting to the cloud provides numerous benefits and competitive advantages that in-house systems simply can’t deliver. Isn’t it time for your billing system to join the ranks of being cloud-enabled?
Cloud-native, BillingCloud provides a complete solution – mediation, rating, invoicing, collections, reporting, analytics, revenue recognition, and A/R subledger. Our end-to-end billing solution streamlines billing processes and expedites the development of new payment systems, allowing some of our customers to realize annual savings of more than $3 million. With BillingPlatform, you get a comprehensive cloud billing software solution that delivers unmatched agility, enabling you to maximize your recurring revenue potential. Let our team of experts show you more.
