A revenue lifecycle platform with standalone billing feels more like a car without tires. The engine runs, but you won't go anywhere.

Here’s why.

As B2B shifts en masse to focus on lifetime value instead of acquisition, understanding the revenue lifecycle is critical to remaining competitive. Namely, customer deals are not one-and-done; there are always opportunities to upsell or cross-sell, potential sources of revenue leakage to eliminate, and lessons taken from analytics to improve the sales process. As Nue’s CTO Tina Kung observed, “The whole thing is like a snowball rolling down a hill — snowballing into revenue growth for the business.”

Some framings of the revenue lifecycle consider billing something separate — but that view is shortsighted. Billing is more than just a tool to send invoices to customers; it’s a critical part of the lifecycle. Managing a standalone billing platform on top of your revenue lifecycle platform will harm efficiency and actively hinder your attempts to optimize revenue.

"The industry needed a quote-to-revenue perspective, rather than attempting to bridge two halves together." 

Here’s why billing is an integral part of a revenue lifecycle platform, and what to keep in mind about any platform you choose to use.

Data is the lifeblood of the revenue lifecycle — and that includes billing data. You have to know who is paying, how much, and on what schedule to calculate critical metrics like annual or monthly recurring revenue, as well as annual or total customer value. And billing data is also necessary for identifying potential revenue leakage. Many companies are sitting on a considerable number of insufficiently billed services that they can’t easily identify, largely because they don’t have sufficient visibility into their billing processes.

"Many companies are sitting on a sizable number of services that they haven’t properly billed." 

If your revenue lifecycle platform doesn’t include a billing engine, you’ll need to connect to one through a challenging integration process. If your revenue lifecycle platform includes billing, on the other hand, you can get real-time analytics out-of-the-box, helping you get value from the platform faster.

Beyond the immediate analytics benefits, a fully unified data view can help substantially with company planning. If everyone knows they are looking at the same data, they can reach out to other departments to problem-solve and plan more effectively.

The average B2B company has likely poured an eyebrow-raising number of employee-hours into bridging the gap between quoting and billing — and if your billing system isn’t part of your revenue lifecycle platform, that gap will continue to pose a challenge. 

"if your billing system isn’t part of your revenue lifecycle platform, the gap between quoting and billing will pose a challenge." 

Challenges that come from isolated billing engines include:

• Billing systems may not be able to bill a quote if billing engine functionality is mis-aligned with your CPQ system. 
• Mid-term changes in the customer lifecycle can wreak havoc on billing, demanding manual adjustments or causing errors that frustrate customers. 
• And even if you accept those challenges as part of your work, revenue recognition will become difficult, and cause some major headaches at the end of each reporting period.

Naturally, the only way around these issues is using a platform that does quoting, lifecycle management, and billing in the same place, built from the ground up for all three purposes. Any quote or mid-term modification can be invoiced immediately with such a system, and will be updated automatically. In turn, this gives you the ability to generate invoice previews and invoices in real time, which improves efficiency, boosts perceived professionalism, and leads to better recordkeeping.

Looking at the historical trajectory of B2B SaaS, it’s clear that very few companies use the same revenue model forever. The odds are high that you will eventually need to evolve your revenue model, and when you do, it will be much easier if billing is integrated with the rest of your revenue lifecycle platform. 

"Looking at the historical trajectory of B2B SaaS, very few companies use the same revenue model forever." 

If your billing engine only supports your current revenue model, you’ll need to manually rehaul your billing engine to support any changes. That can result in an inflexible go-to-market motion — antithetical to the agile nature of a revenue lifecycle platform that is working well. 

As part of keeping your stack agile, you also need to consider the connection between your billing solution and payment system. Ideally, the platform you choose can connect with third-party tools via API, so you can build your stack quickly. 

Nue’s Revenue Lifecycle Platform spans CPQ, lifecycle management, and billing, making it an invaluable tool for companies that want to master the revenue lifecycle. Leverage unified data, detailed analytics, and automatic invoice adjustments to achieve maximum agility. 

To learn more, explore our platform or request a demo.