If you are a B2B service provider or you run a business that caters to the need of a clientele, one of the challenges you will have to deal with is adopting an efficient automated billing software.
Preparing an invoice for all your customers at the end of every month is only one-half of the coin. You also need to maintain an open payment channel that allows customers to pay you what they owe easily. A rigid payment channel is one of the reasons why many customers switch to another company.
Unpaid invoices pose a risk to every business. So it is essential to use billing automation and a payment model that ticks all the right boxes for speed, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. An automated billing system is the only option that guarantees business these three features and more. But before you consider using billing automation, it may be wise to consider the negatives associated with traditional billing systems.
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Issues associated with traditional billing
If your business is going to maintain traditional billing as a means of collecting payments from customers, here are some of the challenges your team will have to deal with on a monthly basis if they haven’t already started facing these issues.
Built for Mass Market, not individuals
Traditional billing is built for a mass market, not to serve individual customer needs. Mass market structures are cheap and easy to manage. However, they do very little to service the special preferences of individual customers. This remains one of the strongest criticisms against traditional billing and why automated billing keeps growing in popularity by the day.
A Reactive Model
Traditional billing is reactive in nature, not proactive. It is meant to react to outcomes and is not suited to adapt to changes in preconceived outcomes. For instance, your business offers the same service in two varieties, both for different prices. 60% of your customers always order Variety A, and 40% opt for B. If more customers begin to favor B over A, traditional billing will not adapt to the change easily. Eventually, this could lead to a loss of customers.
Inflexible and costly changes
An extension of the previous point is that the traditional billing model is inflexible and costly to change. Due to its reactiveness over its proactiveness, accounting for changes in customers’ preferences may cost your business a lot in terms of cash resources.
Bank dependence and poor technical support
Most banks do not offer special services for service providers offering multiple product packages with various pricing. If your banker also has poor technical support, the situation is much worse. On the other hand, companies that offer businesses automated billing systems streamline their services. By doing so, they meet the individual needs of their customers.
Now that we have taken you through some of the issues associated with traditional billing let us point out specific reasons why billing automation is the way to go and why you should adopt this innovative payment model for your business.
Why team members should deploy automated billing?
It is the end of a trading year. Your account team is drawing up your profit and loss account and Balance Sheet for the year. Like all business administrators, you need to pay close attention to your expenses.
Suddenly you realize that your enterprise is spending a significant amount of resources pursuing invoice payments. This is a clear indicator that you need to rethink your payment collection, aka dunning strategy.
Also, if you notice that it takes your team members a long time to prepare and send invoices out to customers, change is required. Here are some of the reasons why implementing automated billing software is needed to improve efficiency.
Automated Billing software minimizes the administrative effort
If you secure an automated billing software and it is linked to other invoice-generating software in your organization, there will be a significant reduction in the amount of time spent performing more than a few administrative tasks by members of your team.
The great thing about this technology is that it can automate some of the work previously done manually. This offers team members more free time to perform other equally important tasks.
Might we also point out that less pressure on your staff will lead to improved productivity in the workplace? Staff efficiency is something every business should strive for.
Improved Cash Flow
Cash flow is the lifeblood of every business. Late payments can significantly affect your cash flow more than you can imagine. Here are some of the basic reasons why your customers may not be paying their bills on time.
- Insufficient or inaccurate data to generate an invoice for individual customers
- Delays in preparing invoices and sending them to customers before the next billing cycle
- Disputes over billing rates
- Conflicts over extra charges
There are yet many other reasons why your customers may not pay their invoices on time. Whatever these reasons are, they may likely affect your cash flow, which is bad for your business.
Deploying an automated billing system ensures that payments are arranged at predetermined intervals and are regular. This goes a long way to solidify your financial position.
Better Subscription management
Businesses that rely on subscriptions offer their services for a standard monthly fee or a pre-agreed fee for product varieties. An automated billing platform can significantly improve your subscription management, especially if you offer the same or different products for different prices.
However, subscription collection is not the only thing automated billing software can help you improve. It can also help you collate and store customer consumption data. Today, many software have diverse invoice templates that your business can use to generate invoices for individual customers.
Automated Billing improves Customer relations
Manual or traditional invoicing has long been the standard. While it has served its purpose and still does for many businesses, automated billing offers a more accurate and concise billing experience.
With the data collated by the software, you can track service usage and communicate with your customers from a position of knowledge should a dispute arise.
One way to improve relationships is by allowing your customers to access their history on an online payment portal. Automated Billing offers transparency that traditional billing doesn’t. If customers trust your billing system and know what they are paying for, their trust in your brand will increase.
Track customer preferences
Another reason why you should deploy automated billing is the valuable data it generates for your marketing and R&D team. Tracking customer preferences at all times will help you determine from a position of knowing what your customers prefer and what they dislike. By merely looking at their consumption patterns, your team will be better able to market the right product to the right audience. The valuable data the automated billing software generates also offers you healthy insights into how to price products accordingly.
Knowing what your customers want, why they want it, and when they want it will help your strategic decision-making both in the short and long term.
Automated billing software is a must-have
Automated billing is for the present and one for the future, especially for businesses that cater to the needs of a diverse customer base. All your customers won’t want the same thing, so offering them the advantage of choice in terms of pricing will give your brand a competitive edge. Furthermore, ensuring speedy invoice delivery with accurate details will lead to fewer customer disputes and timely payments. Lastly, billing automation saves you both the time and resources involved in manual invoicing.
The size and scope of your business enterprise don’t matter if you rely on an efficient technology that promises increased productivity, improved cash flow, and better data management. Tridens Monetization billing software platform offers businesses the opportunity to manage invoices and customer data in a cloud that is cost-effective yet, highly accurate and sustainable.
Our platform also provides you with a more transparent and adaptable billing method that your customers will come to enjoy and trust. Tridens platform can be accessed on most modern-day devices, and what’s more, it can be expanded to meet your business organization’s growing and ever-changing needs.
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