Billing processes are one of the most underrated competitive assets in business. They are fundamental to bringing innovative ways of delivering products and services to market. No matter how good your marketing strategy may be or how obvious customer demand appears, if you can’t bill the customer, you can’t go to market.
The idea that billing is on the critical path to market leadership is well known by those who have successfully met the challenge of integrating billing into their enterprise financial processes. For those who haven’t, it is easy to underestimate the impact a new marketing idea or strategic initiative may have for the company’s core accounting process. Unfortunately, companies with outmoded billing capability are vulnerable to innovation from competitors, and there are no quick fixes.
The most important take- away from this white paper should be that the billing process, and the financial infrastructure as a whole, is a strategic asset and should be managed accordingly. It must be able to grow with the business and also be adept at supporting unanticipated changes. The last thing a marketing team wants to hear is that their new marketing strategy won’t work because “we can’t bill that way”.
A strategic approach to managing the financial infrastructure so that it supports the whole customer relationship results in more accurate and timely billing and thus improved cash flow. It also helps improve customer relationships as the right bill is sent to the right person at the right time. In addition, by integrating the contract, metering, services and the billing systems with the revenue recognition, scheduling, reporting, and forecasting, new levels of strategic analysis can be accomplished to better understand key business drivers and m ...