If you think about the most important business processes today, ‘Quote-to-Cash’ is certainly at the top because it is through the quote to cash process only that you can make driving revenue for your organization easy. You would never want to miss your potential customers by leaving any minor faults in the sales process as being a business, converting a prospect into a satisfied and happy customer is what really matters and this is followed by strong partnership and ongoing trust between you and your customers, right from sales to service. Understand the quote to cash flow –

Here are the 9 aspects that can change the way you look at the business –

1. Pricing:

Pricing in ‘Quote-to-cash’ terminology, is understood as a set of rules that decides the most appropriate and suitable price of a deal. Not only the price, but this also includes deciding the right incentives to attract the customers. In today’s time, you cannot just limit to only deciding the correct price, but to drive revenue and win customers, you also have to identify the appropriate discounts, promotions and incentives. Once you understand that what pricing and promotion strategy is working right for your business, you can apply the same strategy for the future deals to win customers and maximise deal size.

2. Configuration:

When you create the most appropriate combination of products and services, it is termed as configuration. Already with the increased product and deal complexity, it has become very difficult to identify the right combination of products and services to recommend to the customers in order to win deals. Automatically provide recommendations of best configuration to your sales reps to ensure that all your sales reps are now configuration experts – and can crack the best deals!

3. Quoting:

Once done with configuration and pricing, next comes Quoting. Based on the pricing and configuration, a quote is generated and approved which is further sent to the end customer. Quote is the first impression that you share with your customers and is considered as one of the most important stages of your sales cycle. Winning or losing a customer depends on the way you are presenting the quote. Presenting a precise, simple yet quick quote increases your chance to win a deal, while delayed, riddled and complicated quotes often end up losing your customers. So, its very important that the quote you present is error-free and is presented in no time. This creates great impression on your customers and increases your chance to have them onboard.

4. Contract Creation and Negotiation:

Without an agreement on the right set of terms and conditions, no deal can be closed. To avoid any situation that might impact your revenue streams, you have to be very careful about the agreement. These agreements usually come with hidden risks and thus to protect your business you should have even the minute details of the agreement. To ensure the security, you need to have experts who are well aware of the built-in clauses like renewal clause or termination clause during the time when contract is created. After this comes contract negotiation where the terms and conditions can be redefined and altered based on the negotiations. As the agreement document undergoes through multiple iterations, it becomes difficult to keep a track the on-going changes.

5. Executing the Contract

The deal is considered final after it is approved and signed. It is recommended to enable an e-signing tool which is very helpful in reducing the time spent in finalising contracts. This tool also can also be a guideline for any existing roadblocks and parties that have yet to sign.

6. Order Accomplishment:

This process includes the complete order cycle; starting from receiving the order, its processing to the successful delivery. After the deal is done and the contract has been signed, the processing starts, and it’s taken into priority that the products are delivered on time and to the appropriate customers. The advantage of having a Quote to cash solution ensures that the end customer is has agreed on the quotes, pricing and other terms and conditions.

7. Billing and Invoicing:

Accurate billing is done where calculations of final charges is done, and a copy of invoice is sent to the customer. The otherwise critical billing process is made easy with the help of integrated Quote-to-Cash process. The ‘Quote-to-cash’ solutions ensure that the exact quotation and contract details are provided to the finance team so that the customer gets accurate billing.

8. Revenue Recognition:

Revenue recognition helps in understanding that the cash from the customer’s end has been received. Here, you cannot afford to go wrong and thus the correct details of the contracting terms like quotes, pricing, payment modes, net payment terms and delivery calendars etc. is passed on to your finance team. ‘Quote-to-cash’ solution is the best way to recognise the revenue correctly.

9. Renewal:

While the revenue recognition is done, your next focus should be on the renewals. This helps in managing customers retention and also the recurring income. If it is the SaaS model, its sure that a huge percentage of revenue is derived in the form of repeated, already existing and subscribed customers. Quote-to-cash is the most important part of your business and will also help you in getting advances in big data and machine learning so that the sales reps are happy, and you can deliver more intelligent sales!