How SuiteBilling empowers subscription and rental-based businesses to streamline their processes

In an age of transparency, businesses offering subscriptions that are seeking a seamless, all-encompassing approach to billing need look no further than a cloud ERP solution. Housing the tools to enhance a company’s billing and invoice management capabilities, Oracle NetSuite offers businesses real-time visibility over their financials – empowering them to streamline their existing processes and retain control of their back-office activity.

One specialised function is SuiteBilling – NetSuite’s centralised billing engine – which enables businesses to remain agile while meeting the expectations of a rapidly evolving marketplace, both now and during the years to come. From flexible change orders to the support of multiple pricing models, we look at just a few ways businesses can reap the benefits of NetSuite’s principal billing solution.

Billing that’s less of a burden

The billing process for any business can prove arduous and optimisation through automation is crucial to avoid inefficiencies and errors. Where past software may once have hindered businesses due to disparate order, billing and revenue management systems in place, SuiteBilling eradicates the need for draining manual tasks. Whether a transaction, subscription, or usage-based structure, SuiteBilling centralises billing for businesses that were once buried away as back-office functions. By unifying these elements, businesses immediately bolster their productivity – minus the complex integrations of previous vendor solutions.

Flexible solutions for a subscription-based world

In a subscription-led economy, SuiteBilling answers the tech industry’s demand for features that complement the subscription billing model. From full integration to advanced revenue management, the Subscription billing function enables these businesses to create and manage subscriptions – while receiving support for recurring billing. Advanced Subscription billing mirrors these capabilities, paired with the added control over more complex, value-based subscriptions. At its heart, SuiteBilling connects the dots by unifying transactions, subscriptions and projects that all lead back to core financials.

Low maintenance pricing models

Thanks to the multiple pricing models offered by SuiteBilling, services businesses can easily bill their customers in their usual familiar way – whether that be a flat rate per billing cycle, or a more complex tiered scenario. These models fall under the following categories:

• Flat Model – this allows businesses to charge customers the same value each billing cycle.
• Volume Model – this charge is calculated based on consumption or entitlement where the highest volume tier unit rate is reached.
• Tiered Model – this is where the rate for each unit of consumption or entitlement tier is applied to a given range; the total value is formed of varying per-unit rates resulting in the final charge amount.

Akin to the flexibility offered by pricing models, rating models give companies the choice of billing subscriptions – from in-advance or in-arrears, to recurring or one-time fees. This way, companies can capture such elements as setup fees, license counts and variable consumption in one fell swoop. Together with low-level maintenance, this contributes to billing process efficiency on an even grander scale.

Automated change orders for swift subscription updates

With the ability to schedule an immediate or future-dated adjustment to pricing or quantities on subscriptions, SuiteBilling’s automation capabilities enable businesses to seamlessly update their billing cycle status via the change order function – minus the headache of manual monitoring. To capture pricing/quantity changes over a period of time based on the set effective date, SuiteBilling also supports the pro-rating of invoice lines. Backdated orders already billed to the customer automatically generate a credit.

Business-specific pricing with seamless subscription renewal

Designed to cater for common and customised scenarios, SuiteBilling accommodates deal negotiations and contracts that are business-specific for services customers. Whether based off existing or net new subscriptions, bespoke subscriptions empower companies to create their own specific pricing or contractual agreements – even down to precise discounting rules per item. When it comes to renewal management – whether traditional time-based or evergreen – SuiteBilling ensures a hassle-free process. Where ongoing changes are concerned, such as upsell, down sell, suspend or terminate, companies can rest assured that everyday updates are managed seamlessly.

With the valuable feature of real-time reporting for an enhanced view of financial data anytime any place, there are so many advantages to billing within NetSuite. Modules like SuiteBilling not only provide a market-leading approach to everyday operations, but also empower subscription and rental-based firms to utilise their existing solution, with billing capabilities that evolve with their needs.