Companies increasingly move to subscription and usage-based billing models as customer preferences shift toward recurring and consumption-based services.
These billing strategies can provide you with scalable, predictable revenue. However, to succeed with this model, you must maintain revenue transparency and proactively remove friction from the customer journey.
If your organization already operates in Salesforce, aligning billing with CRM data and service delivery is more manageable than expected. All you need is the right tools and processes. Here’s everything you need to know, including how you can unify your data with the support of Singularity Consulting.
The Complexity of Subscription and Usage Models
Subscription and usage-based billing introduce new complexities that traditional systems simply can’t handle. A few of the hurdles you’ll encounter include the following:
- Tiered pricing
- Real-time usage tracking and billing thresholds
- Proration and mid-cycle changes
- Contract renewal automation
Old-school billing applications charge users at set prices using fixed rules. They can’t handle tasks like prorating charges for the last 10 days of a billing cycle when a customer upgrades mid-month. Billing errors like that one will hurt your cash flow and damage trust in your brand. They may also lead customers to downgrade their services or cancel altogether.
How Salesforce Gives You an Edge
If you are operating on Salesforce, you are already at an advantage. The system captures all the sales and customer data you need to implement accurate usage-based billing. Now, all you need to do is integrate billing within the same ecosystem to eliminate silos. When subscription data lives alongside account and service information, you’ll find it easier to:
- Adjust pricing dynamically
- Automate renewals and upgrades
- Upsell and cross-sell
- Link usage data with outcomes
- Gain real-time visibility into customer lifetime value
That’s the beauty of Salesforce. Let’s look at your next steps so you can use your existing tools through strategic upgrades.
We Already Have Salesforce — Now What?
If your business is already operating on the Salesforce platform, you should:
Focus on Automation
Manual invoicing and using fragmented spreadsheets set you up for failure. These systems simply don’t scale.
Automating usage tracking and billing logic within Salesforce ensures that your revenue operations are agile and audit-ready. You can dig deep into your data to determine what’s working, where you are leaking revenue, and how to promote strong cash flow.
Modern solutions like Certinia enable your organization to achieve financial transparency. Use these insights to grow your business and protect continuity.
Integrate Native Tools
There are plenty of tools that integrate with Salesforce. However, native solutions provide the most seamless experience and help you avoid many common implementation challenges.
Certinia is 100% native to the Salesforce ecosystem. Since the application is built on Salesforce, you’ll enjoy a seamless integration journey and fewer business disruptions.
Additionally, the tools will feel familiar, meaning your team’s learning curve will be shallower. Eliminating change resistance and getting your team on board sooner means a more substantial ROI and condensed time to value.
Invest in Advanced Billing Capabilities
Advancing billing solutions like CS Cloud bring billing, finance, and customer data together in Salesforce. With CS Cloud, you can:
- Capture usage events
- Configure rating engines for complex pricing models
- Perform real-time billing and forecasting
- Recognize revenue and growth
Certinia CS Cloud is native to Salesforce and provides a user-friendly experience your team will love. The result is less change resistance, better productivity, and more accurate billing, which are great for long-term business growth.
Modernize Usage-Based Billing With Singularity Consulting
Do you need new tools to accommodate your usage-based billing model? Singularity Consulting helps clients like you identify and implement Certinia solutions like CS Cloud. Our experts are with you at every step, from planning to post-implementation support.
Ready to elevate your billing and subscription management capabilities? Contact Singularity Consulting to schedule a consultation.
