Revenue assurance is one of the key challenges of Service industries, beyond the traditional challenges such as customer acquisition, customer retention, cost effective service delivery, talent management & account mining; which usually have high impact on the profitability & sustenance. I have prepared an overview document basis my experience & observations. Hope you would like it, please share your opinions.

1. Page 1 of 7
Prepared by: Raju Mn
Contract docs
Revenue Assurance in Service Industry
Revenue assurance is one of the key challenges of Service industries, beyond the traditional
challenges such as customer acquisition, customer retention, cost effective service delivery,
talent management & account mining; which usually have high impact on the profitability &
sustenance.
This document is to cover the key aspects of revenue assurance in service industries.
The activities related to revenue assurance (RA) can be broadly divided into two major
categories.
1. Contract document AND Service Level Agreement (SLA) analysis – One time activity per contract
2. Revenue assurance operations – On going activity
1.
1. Contract document & SLA analysis
Once the contract is signed off and project is kicked off,
the team responsible for revenue assurance of that
particular client / project must read the complete set of
contract documents such as agreement, annexures, rate
card (if rates / fees are project basis) & Service level
agreements to understand the key information such as
deliverables of the contract / project, objective of the
contract, timelines, rates / fees, payment terms, credit
terms, Turn-around-time (TAT), billing process that is
agreed by both the parties & especially the vendor bill
processing systems followed by the client organization,
which is very critical for the team to move the bills / track
the bills moving from one desk to another, till the bill is
honored.

2. Page 2 of 7
Prepared by: Raju Mn
RA teams usually lose the track of the bills submitted to client organization, sometimes senior
level teams had to involve in tracking the bills at client organization, this is predominantly may
occur because of a) RA team doesn’t put in effort in understanding the bill processing systems
at client organization and b) Failure in influencing the client.
Needless to say, that this activity (Contract document & SLA analysis) is repeatable for every
new client / project AND on new entry in RA team.
Though, customer acquisition team usually does
the key contact mapping of a client organization
that may be helpful till contract is signed. The line
teams, HR / procurement / VMS teams may or
may not be part of that mapping, hence, it’s critical
for Revenue Assurance team to map the key
contacts that either influence or take the decision
in on-going operations once the project is kick
started.
This process will be helpful for the team to identify
the right point of contact at each operational stage
of service delivery, which will help them in timely
communication of status reports of service
deliverables, escalation communications & in
tracking the bills.
The Impact of delayed collection may
lead to fund flow challenges, lack of
fund predictions & profitability to an
extent of interest paid on additional
funds borrowed. Profitability may not
be affected for a cash rich company,
but the company may lose few
opportunities (opportunity loss) by
directing the funds that can be
allocated for another project service
delivery.

3. Page 3 of 7
Prepared by: Raju Mn
2. Revenue assurance operations
Now let’s move to the very important category, RA
operations are periodical & recurring in nature.
** I have appended a flow chart of the process at the end of the
document; this flow chart illustrates each & every minor activity
that is to be carried out in an ideal environment.
The activities of the process can be further categorized as
i) Deliverables tracking
ii) Deliverables certification or authentication
iii) Periodic summarization of deliverables in alignment with billing cycle
iv) Proforma Invoice & client consent
v) Bill preparation & Submission
vi) Bill tracking & dispute resolution
vii) Collection & reporting
viii) Account adjustments (Credit / debit notes)
ix) Periodic reconciliations
Organizations may involve a single or multiple teams covering the whole process if revenue
assurance. The decision of deploying single or multiple teams is usually depends on the market
segments, volume of operations, and type of organization. For example, a very large
organization may deploy specific team to manage only pre-billing activities (1-4 steps above),
another team to process / prepare bills (typically F&A team takes this responsibility), and a
separate team in collecting the monies from the client.
Though the first two categories (as mentioned above) are part of delivery team’s KRA, it makes
sense for RA team in involving in these areas in-order avoiding revenue leakage. There are
possibilities that delivery team may lose track of deliverables out of their work pressure or
customer engagement activities. However, RA team overlapping in these activities would not
adversely impact, hence, highly recommendable.

4. Page 4 of 7
Prepared by: Raju Mn
i) Track Deliverables–
Track each & every deliverable that has a value
to be billed & collected from client. Order vs
delivery tracking is very important not only for
revenue assurance but also for sharing the
status reports with client on periodic review
schedules, corrections in the delivery strategy /
approach, renegotiation & change requests.
Project coordinator or MIS team member
attached to the project is responsible for this
activity.
ii) Client consent on deliverables –
Once, a deliverable is recorded that has a value
to be billed, shall be acknowledged by the client
designated contact. All such consents can be
annexed as supporting documents for billing;
this will help VMS teams of client organizations
to process the bills without queries. Delivery
teams usually take the responsibility of client
certification of each deliverable and that is
advisable, as client contacts may not like the
idea of involving another team from service
provider for such activities, they feel
comfortable dealing with delivery team for these
activities
iii) Periodic summarization of deliverables in
alignment with billing cycle
Project deliverables are on-going in an on-going
contract / project, however billing is periodical.
Summarize all the deliverables that fall in the
particular billing cycle and calculate value of the
deliverables in reference to the rate card /
contract.

5. Page 5 of 7
Prepared by: Raju Mn
.
A change request is made to service provider basis the analysis of the profarma invoice. Client
organization may consent the proforma invoice in case of no changes are needed and that
becomes the basis for final bill.
iv) Profarma Invoice & Client consent
Proforma invoice is document that has
estimated value of service deliverables to be
billed. This helps clients to allocate budgets for
the specific payment period. This invoice is
usually submitted along with a statement of
summary of deliverables with value written on it.
This document will also be helpful for client
organizations in quick assessment of
deliverables to be billed & complete the pre-
audit requirements of the organization.
v) Bill preparation & submission
Value for each deliverable is officially
recorded thru this document. Bill / Invoice is a
non-negotiable commercial document. This is
the most critical document that enables (only
approved bills) the service provider in
presenting the case in legal battle.
Submission & obtaining acknowledgement
from client organization’s bill desk is critical,
and that is the primary step of collection
process.

6. Page 6 of 7
Prepared by: Raju Mn
vi) Track & resolve the disputes (if any) – As earlier discussed, bill tracking is very
important activity that enables service provider in collecting the funds from client
organization as per payment terms agreed. Despite of proforma invoice & client consent,
still few disputes may arise against the bills prepared & submitted
And every time bill is re-submitted, client organization may restart the bill validation
from the very first step, this impacts collection cycle adversely. We already
discussed the impact of delayed collections above.
The disputes may not be limited to rate or value
of the deliverables billed, it may also include
description of services delivered, address of the
bill, annexures, statements, authentication of
deliverables, SLA documents, contract papers,
order / purchase orders, etc. It’s critical for RA
team to understand supporting documents of an
invoice / bill. No need to argument that a
Change notice of the bill is primary failure of
revenue assurance team unless it’s an unusual
dispute. RA team needs to analyze the dispute,
identify corrective measures, coordinate with
the stake holders, and influence the authorities
for revising and resubmitting the invoice.
vii) Collection & Reporting
Tracking the stages of the bills, alerting the
bill processing teams about TAT (as &
when needed) and timely escalations of
deviations; results in timely collection.
Recording each collection in invoice tracker
and reporting to F&A teams is critical for
tallying the books of both the parties.

7. Page 7 of 7
Prepared by: Raju Mn
Disclaimer: This document is prepared out of personal interest and content is not copied from any document, images
used are from open web and used only for symbolic representation of relevant topic. Interpretation of each topic may
differ from one to another, however, author tried to explain his views about the topic. Content is generic in nature and
prepared in view of service industry as broad category. If, the entire process or any part of the process may
resemble any of the organization or industry, that is purely coincidence.
viii) Credit Note OR Debit note
Very common practice of tallying the books of
accounts of both parties is floating credit note or
debit note (as the case may be) in case of any
disputes in the submitted or honored bills.
The below are the most common reasons for
floating a credit note such as a) overstating the
value of deliverables in the invoice b) re-
negotiation of deliverable’s value after billing –
increase in rates c) operational errors in billing
d) changes in applicable taxes. Debit note may
be floated for dissimilar reasons.
ix) Periodic reconciliations
Periodic reconciliations are critical to analyze
the gaps between the books of accounts of both
the parties and recommended to avoid last hour
rushes during financial year closure.
These reconciliations may include but not
limited to a) Order Vs. Delivery of service, b)
Delivery Vs. Billing; c) Billing Vs. Collections