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Microsoft CSPs face enormous challenges when it comes to managing the billing of a large customer base. These include revenue leakages, CSP bill reconciliation errors, delayed or missed payments, etc. Using a Microsoft CSP billing automation tool can reduce the billing challenges by accurate and timely invoice generation, effective revenue collection, reducing administrative workload, cashflow management, improving customer satisfaction, and lowering customer churn. You can read more about the billing challenges Microsoft CSPs face and ways to overcome them in our blog here.
There are various specialized tools for different business processes that can optimize your business performance. Even though a Microsoft CSP billing software is capable of solving most of your billing-related woes, to run the CSP business efficiently, the billing automation tool should not be working in isolation. While using a variety of tools can give you the best business outcomes, the data stored in one tool is siloed from the data in another tool. This poses a challenge when you wish to have a holistic view of the data. Manual transfer or migration of such data can take a lot of time and lead to errors as well as data loss. If your billing system is not integrated with other key software that are being used to run your CSP business, then it will lead to a dip in efficiency and have a negative impact on your business.
How can integrations enhance Microsoft CSP billing automation?
Microsoft cloud billing is not limited to generating invoices, as a CSP you have to take care of the payment tracking & collection, license renewals, and managing other subscription-related tasks for your customers. Successfully managing the billing of a subscription-based business requires all the business tools to be connected to the billing system.
Having a Microsoft CSP billing automation tool that can integrate with other platforms being used by you has the following benefits for your CSP business:
Reduces revenue leakages
An integrated system reduces the instances of revenue leakages. CSPs tend to face revenue loss due to failed payments, delayed or missed renewals, inaccurate billing, errors in manual reconciliation of subscriptions, etc.
Improves customer experience
An improved billing experience with accurate invoices, correct tax calculations, ability to support multiple payment modes and multiple currencies helps in delivering an exceptional customer experience.
Increases operational efficiency
When multiple tools are leveraged to manage a subscription business, the customer data such as orders, payment status, upcoming renewals, subscription upgrades, and downgrades are stored within these different tools. Integrating the tools makes working with this scattered data easier and less time-consuming.
Provides business insights
With all the systems working coordinated with each other, you will have initiative-taking insights that can help you make better business decisions. You will have a unified view of your subscriptions, revenue, customer churn, and other metrics to act upon to scale your CSP business.
For optimal business performance, your Microsoft CSP billing automation tool should offer the following integrations.
Payment Gateway
Integrating payment gateways with your billing automation system helps you collect payments faster giving you more money to invest in your business. Payment gateways allow you to collect payment via different payment modes such as credit cards, prepaid cards, bank transfers, debit cards, wallets, etc, and also provide support for multiple currencies. This makes transactions flexible, easy, and more secure for customers as well. The auto-pay facility enabled for recurring orders reduces the chances of subscription cancellation due to missed payments.
Accounting and Finance
Billing and invoicing errors can have a significant impact on the bottom line of any business. In a subscription-based business such as Microsoft CSP, even small revenue leakages when repeated over a period of time lead to huge losses in revenue. Integrating your Microsoft CSP billing automation tool with accounting software that takes care of bookkeeping functions allows you to track and monitor the financial health of your business in real-time. With your accounting system integrated with your Microsoft CSP billing tool, you can review the actual and deferred revenue in one place. This reduces the manual workload and allows you to serve more customers at the same time.
Professional Services Automation
Professional Services Automation (PSA) software reduces billing errors, eliminates discrepancies, and allows the implementation of faster billing cycles. The integration of the Microsoft CSP billing tool with PSA software will help streamline the provisioning and consolidate subscription billing and invoicing. The integration of the billing system with the PSA software ensures that you do not have to manually update any changes in existing subscriptions, new subscription additions, new products added, or any contract changes in the PSA software every time a modification is made. Once the data is mapped, any change in the billing tool is automatically updated in the PSA software. This reduces manual effort and errors.
Partner with C3 and experience seamless integrations
C3 offers a host of integrations that allow you to seamlessly run your Microsoft CSP business. Connecting the varied business software to the Microsoft CSP billing automation tool developed by C3 allows you a competitive advantage. You can increase the operational efficiency of your team and maximize profits by using the different integrations available with C3. Partner with C3 and run your CSP business better with the following integrations
Professional Services Automation– Manage subscriptions and invoices easily by using the C3 integration with your favorite PSA software. C3 offers integration with ConnectWise Manage as well as Datta Autotask which can be used to generate invoices specific to customer agreements or contracts.
Accounting Software– C3 allows integration with bookkeeping software such as QuickBooks and Xero. These integrations help keep your billing and accounting systems in sync with each other without the need for any manual intervention, saving time and resources. The automatic data flow makes it easier to track and monitor the finances of the company.
External Payment Gateway– C3 integrates with Stripe, Authorize.Net, Bill&Pay, MCB, EziDebit. Enabling these integrations helps in easy and secure payment collection. Plug your revenue leakages by configuring the auto-pay option available in the payment gateway and save time chasing after missed payments.
Apart from the integrations discussed above, you can also get custom integrations developed for your CSP business. Get in touch with us to discuss your requirements and let’s revolutionize your CSP business practice.
