Is optimising the way you bill your customers for products and services on your corporate agenda for the next 12 months? If you answered in the negative, it’s possible you’re doing your organisation out of an opportunity to strengthen its position and boost profitability.
While, historically, revenue management has been viewed as very much a back-room process, in today’s times, it’s become anything but.
In fact, there’s a body of research to suggest that the quality of the billing experience can have a material impact on customer confidence, loyalty and satisfaction. So much so that our research suggests that 50-60% of customers may consider switching vendors after an incidence of inaccurate billing.
Against that backdrop, making your billing and revenue management processes as smooth, seamless and accurate as possible should be a pressing commercial imperative.
Maintaining best practice means keeping pace with market trends and evolving your processes and practices accordingly. Here are a few developments it will pay to be across as you look to enhance this critical element of your operations.
Switching to subscription-based pricing
While they’re nothing new – selling products and services on a usage, rather than outright acquisition, basis has been accepted business practice for centuries – subscription-based sales and billing models are booming. Software and services businesses are leading the charge but where they go, more traditional businesses are following.
Whatever the nature of your offering, it’s worth considering whether giving customers an alternative to upfront purchasing would help your business gain mind and market share. If the answer is yes, putting the IT infrastructure in place to enable you to do so should be a priority.
Harnessing the power of predictive analytics
Inaccurate billing isn’t ‘just’ an irritant for customers. Sloppy revenue management practices can also result in revenue leakage; something businesses operating on tight margins – and in today’s challenging financial landscape, few are not! – can ill afford.
That why the smart ones are doing something about it, namely adopting AI-driven tools to predict billing errors and optimise pricing. Recent research from BillingPlatform suggests around 30 per cent of companies are now using predictive analytics to fine tune their billing – and they’re seeing error reduction rates of up to 20 per cent as a result.
Billing in real time
Also on the up and up: real time billing. Being able to track customer consumption and bill for it instantly is a game changer for many organisations, particularly those in the fast-moving telecoms and SaaS sectors.
Unlike traditional batch-based billing, which sees charges calculated at the end of the month or billing cycle, real time billing delivers transparency and accuracy; making it easier for suppliers and customers alike to keep a handle on usage levels and costs.
Tools to make the task easy
Adopting the latest billing practices can be difficult if your revenue management function is mired in the past, using manual or semi-manual systems to manage what are very often complex calculations and processes.
That’s why it pays to invest in market leading revenue management technology, in the form of a cloud-based solution that offers flexible quote-to-cash lifecycle support for whatever pricing model or models you elect to adopt.
Ideally, you’ll select one that automates quoting and billing workflows, generates detailed accurate invoices, at the end of the period or in real time, offers flexible payment options and combines dunning, collections and payment processing in a single automated solution.
Partner with a premium vendor whose platform connects with your CRM and delivers sophisticated data analytics functionality and you’ll also be able to extract actionable insights which can be used to up your appeal to customers and optimise every aspect of the revenue management process.
Using better billing to build a stronger business in FY2026
Rigorous revenue management is part and parcel of running a tight ship – something businesses can’t afford not to do, in today’s tough economic times.
Technology that illuminates and underpins every aspect of the journey makes it easy to optimise your processes and practices, to ensure you’re keeping pace with market trends and providing a billing experience that invokes confidence and loyalty from your customers.
If yours has not received the attention it warrants in recent times, making it a focus in FY2026 is likely to serve your enterprise extremely well.