To improve your DSO and Billing Cycle Time, we need to deep dive into the root causes of the problem. Many of our Customers have a large volume of unbilled documents. Trend Analysis will show that the monthly average every year will be consistent, this is a pain point across all industries, and the more global footprint you have, the more complex the problem becomes.
So how can we solve the above? What needs to change to be able to overcome these challenges? Below are the key issues and what you can do using GetBilled.
Sales & Marketing Teams
Ensure every contract and every Purchase Order has clearly defined pathways agreed with the customer on how we should bill? When can we bill? What documents are to be provided with the bill? Who on the customer side is authorized to sign what? And to what timeline?
Most customers have a cutoff to receive an invoice, generally in the last week of the month, or a Project manager has a specific date where they review all vendor jobs. In these complex changing invoice requirements, the GetBilled customer requirements module comes in handy, and you can log all the above conditions so that everyone is aware of what to do when it’s time to bill. The same information is available across the entire organization in Realtime.
Customer Onsite Execution
Most of us, when we finish the job, depending on the business segment, the customer rep can be on-site or off-site.
The on-site rep signs off on the documents, but there can be many Business Segments where the customer is not on the job site. And someone needs to go to the project manager’s office in another location and get the signatures. This timely last-mile activity is the ultimate measure of success in a job.
Using GetBilled Workflow Tracking, these events can be tracked and escalated, especially when working with large national companies with multiple departments approving these documents.
Understanding Customer Internal Dynamics and Power Players
Like our own organization, everyone has internal protocols, rules, authorization limits, and layers of approvals for your job. What are the approvals levels? Who must approve? Anticipate key project managers going on leave or traveling.
National Government Owned Companies
This is a different animal. That needs a different strategy. Using GetBilled issue identification and classification process, you can track where you are and who is working on them. Know the players. Who signs on the budget? When the budget cycle kicks in? When can it get released? The person who cries the most will get the most money paid.
Purchase Order or Contract Limit
The customer is not to blame for exceeding the Purchase Order. When it reaches 75%, you need to be proactive and get the amendment process going. By the time the internal process kicks in, you will have the increased Limit to continue your work and get paid on time.
Do not fall for the Project Manager Trap
Most customers have fixed budgets and even slice it by job site. Due to multiple factors, the site can exceed the budget, and the project manager covers his tracks by exceeding the purchase order to get the work going and meet his target commitment. We will be working for free without the purchase order being amended or the new purchase order or contract extended. Until the project manager can catch up and get a new budget for the location.
E-Commerce Customers
We see most of North America and Europe moving to E-Billing. PO needs to be in the customer’s systems for the pricing of every contract. Your system needs to have updated values. And every time an amendment or changes are made, both system on the customer and yours should sync.
E-Billing is a new Technology for Most of your Salespeople, expanding worldwide. They need to understand this process and be ahead of the game.
Credit Terms Non-Compliance
Many of our customers are guilty of slipping on credit terms. These are the same customers who will cry foul and penalize us for nonperformance or quality in the field for every second something went wrong. In the project meetings, you need to use the same strategy to talk about this and hold them accountable. GetBilled analytics module gives you Realtime insights into which documents are pending? How long and why are they pending? So, you can have a conversation with your clients.
Last Week Billing
Even though Most of your Jobs are completed early in the month. 40% of your invoicing happens in the Last week. And this is not due to the inefficiency of the billing team. They do a tremendous job of pulling this together. But your upstream activities are weak and destroy 15 days of cash due to the late submission of documents to the billing teams. (Message: Operations are accountable for delivering the complete required data to execute timely billing. GetBilled Allows you to see the pipeline of sales orders created and when they are due for billing. The billing Team can proactively push for workflows, asking the field to provide the documents if the job has been completed.
Collective Responsibility
Everyone in the organization is part of the order to cash cycle from sales, operations, supply chain, customer support, and finance; we are one connected chain working together to make this journey a success and save millions every year.