NetSuite SuiteBilling: Automate Recurring Revenue

4 Challenges Solved when You Automate Recurring Revenue with NetSuite SuiteBilling

Recurring revenue business models include many advantages such as consistent cash flow and higher valuations. If you're considering a move to this business model, it's important to ensure your back office team and systems are capable of this transition. Learn how to overcome these three challenges when you automate recurring revenue with NetSuite SuiteBilling.

Subscription Billing Challenge #1 - Multiple Transactions, Single Sale

A subscription-based business usually has a single sale representing multiple transactions billed at repeated intervals over a selected timeframe. Whereas, in the traditional sales model, one sale is one transaction.

Customers are billed repeatedly in the subscription model, typically once a month. If your finance team is using spreadsheets or another application to manage recurring billing, you can imagine this increased volume of billing and invoicing can quickly become overwhelming.

Subscription Billing Challenge #2 - More Required Processes

The additional processes required to manage a subscription business model are mostly inefficient and can be an obstacle to achieving effective recurring billing. Reviewing hundreds of accounts every month while calculating and entering the charges is time-consuming and labor-intensive. As your company grows, you'll be faced with having to hire more staff to tackle the new billing volume.

The addition of NetSuite subscription billing with NetSuite SuiteBilling can save your billing teams countless hours by automating the required processes for subscription billing in a single place. Some companies have been able to hold off additional headcount by automating and eliminating manual tasks.

Subscription Billing Challenge #3 - Multiple Pricing Structures

Plans that feature variable rate structures require extra effort. For example, volume-based, tiered, or customer-specific pricing all require additional tasks to ensure customers are charged correctly without automation. Billing customers for time or usage is particularly challenging because the consumption and applicable fees charged can vary from month to month. Temporary, promotional discounts and free trials can also complicate billing because you need to track and calculate start and end dates.

Most ERP systems are not built to support promotional periods, different pricing models, or automated recurring billing. So much of the work is handled manually with spreadsheets or disparate systems. Trying to maintain all this data in spreadsheets or multiple systems will quickly make it tricky or impossible to report accurately without a lot of time and heavy lifting.

NetSuite SuiteBilling includes many options so you get the flexibility of offering subscriptions as a one-time charge or recurring fee, in advance or in arrears. It's easy to create subscriptions that capture setup costs, license counts, and monthly consumption all in one step using multiple rating models. The combination of easy subscription setup and flexible rating models significantly increases recurring billing efficiency and accuracy while reducing the time it takes to complete.

Challenges Solved when You Automate Recurring Billing

The best way to overcome these challenges is by automating recurring billing. Automation simplifies the billing process, saves time, and helps increase billing accuracy by eliminating manual tasks, incorrect calculations, or bad formulas in your spreadsheets. An automated billing solution also keeps customer data, pricing, and other critical information in one place, improving overall financial visibility.

NetSuite SuiteBilling makes adopting a subscription business model simple and more efficient. You'll get real-time visibility into billing and financial activity across monthly recurring revenue, total contract value, as well as customer churn. 

Trust the NetSuite Experts at Oasis

When implementing ERP software, It's best to work with a NetSuite ERP consultant team, like Oasis Solutions, to help you move data from older systems. The NetSuite ERP specialists at Oasis Solutions can help you get up and running quickly with robust software, professional services, and expert hands-on training.

Contact our Oasis Solutions team today to get the expert guidance you need for a successful implementation.