www.ventanaresearch.com © 2016 Ventana Research FinancialForce Billing Central for Subscription and Hybrid Businesses The market for subscription or recurring revenue billing software is growing along with the increasing popularity of this business model. The expanding use of cloud-based IT services and a growing preference to rent rather than own things are two of the primary factors driving companies to choose this business method. The main business reasons to adopt a subscription model are to increase revenue, improve customer experience and increase customer loyalty, according to our Recurring Revenue benchmark research. FinancialForce, a provider of cloud-based ERP and financial software, recently announced the availability of Billing Central, a component of its cloud-based ERP system that unifies billing, revenue management and accounting operations on the Salesforce platform. Billing Central is notable because although all ERP systems can invoice and bill for individual product and service transactions, few are capable of managing the invoicing and billing process for anything but the simplest sub- scription configurations (such as a fixed-term contract with payment up front). Since an important reason why buyers are choosing non-ownership is flexibility in how they con- sume products or services, an increasing number of companies in response are offering more intricate and variable contract struc- tures. For them, subscription invoicing and billing software has become a necessity. Subscription billing systems can promote customer satisfaction in two ways. The first is by providing flexibility in creating offers configured to address the exact set of goods and services a customer wants. The second is by providing a billing process that is always accurate and complete. Billing systems designed expressly for subscriptions also can reduce administrative workloads in both the front and the back office. In particular, the software can reduce accounting workloads under the new revenue recognition standards (ASC 606 in the United States and IFRS 15 in most other countries), which I have written about. These rules increase the complexity of the accounting process for all but the simplest subscription revenue businesses. The most distinctive feature of FinancialForce Billing Central is that it can be easier to implement and maintain than a stand-alone subscription billing system. This is possible because FinancialForce and Salesforce applications share the same data. And since Salesforce offers sales automation and customer service, these capabilities are already Sponsored by: