Many NetSuite users are unaware of the benefits of SuiteBilling, which is understandable as it’s a relatively new product in the UK – but if your business utilises some form of subscription billing, then you might find it invaluable.
With its origins in the 17th century, subscription billing has been around a while – but as the business landscape has evolved, particularly in this digital age, we have seen its use flourish.
Finance leaders are always looking for creative ways to increase revenue streams for their products, services, maintenance and support offerings, which often leads to a complex fusion of billing based on usage and subscriptions.
Rather than selling a one-off product, with subscriptions customers are billed at regular intervals (monthly or annually are the most common). This type of billing is very common for software companies – NetSuite and Salesforce operate in this way, as does Netflix. You can even buy shaving products on a subscription basis now!
When a company is small with very few customers, this can be managed with spreadsheets, but with hundreds or thousands of customers and potentially millions of transactions it is vital to have a software solution that can manage this for you. Without it, you risk mis-billing your customers, which will not only increase customer dissatisfaction (and therefore churn) or worse still – you might not bill them at all.
Moves to subscription billing add complexity around revenue recognition for companies who are not used to operating within that space – where knowing where and when to recognise revenue is vital. Revenue recognition rules also evolve, so it is equally important to be cognizant with any changes to avoid losing revenue and falling foul of tax laws.
The surge in subscription billing now means that more and more companies now need a solution that can handle such complex billing arrangements.
NetSuite SuiteBilling provides businesses with one of the most comprehensive billing systems on the market. It can create flexible contracts for customers and sits seamlessly within NetSuite’s core financial accounting solution, giving you real-time visibility into all business operations – synchronising all your orders, billing and revenue recognition into one system.
SuiteBilling gives you the ability to bill using flexible pricing plans:
SuiteBilling gives you the flexibility to invoice subscriptions as once only, in advance or in arrears. Customer subscriptions can also be configured to include items such as license counts, setup fees and consumption in one step using multiple rating models.
SuiteBilling allows multiple billing accounts for a single customer and sub-customer. For example, you might have a customer that has many franchises who needs the license fee charged to the parent company and the service fees need to be billed to sub customers.
SuiteBilling allows you to schedule and automate changes to subscriptions meaning you don’t need to manually monitor and track customer subscription changes. Any alterations to prices and/or quantities can be made immediately or scheduled for a later time using a change order.
SuiteBilling utilises NetSuite’s Advanced Revenue Management so there’s no requirement for additional software to accomplish this tricky area of accounting as it is compliant with revenue recognition rules.
SuiteBilling provides greater transparency and an improved billing experience for the customer by providing a thorough breakdown of their invoice so they know exactly what they are paying for.
Real-time visibility into billing and financial activity.
“With SuiteBilling, we’re giving our customers a next-generation solution to win in the marketplace today and future-proof their business for change tomorrow.”
SuiteBilling releases its first SuiteAnalytics Workbook, focusing on monthly recurring revenue. This feature includes the record, dataset template, and workbook template.
Use the standard workbook template for analytics on recurring revenue, churn, upsell, downsell, and renewal revenue for all your subscriptions. Customize views with additional filters and data by modifying the workbook template and dataset template. Choose to visualize the data as a table, chart, or pivot. The workbook lets you compare revenue trends and details through the following customizable views:
SuiteBilling might be exactly what your business needs to increase visibility and increase automation to subscription billing in your company.
If you would like to know more about SuiteBilling, or any other area of NetSuite, get in touch.
The NetSuite 2025.2 Release introduces a range of updates designed to streamline processes, improve data visibility and enhance the user experience. Release notes can be lengthy, so we’ve summarised the features that matter most to help you quickly see what’s relevant for your business.
