1. 5 Reasons to Automate Subscription Billing
January 28, 2013
Steve Adams

2. •
Subscriptions aren’t just for newspapers…
– Examples of Retail Subscriptions
•
Challenges of implementing subscriptions
•
5 Benefits of Automation
•
How Fusebill can help – Quick Demonstration

3. The expanding Subscription World

4. It’s one of the simplest of truths
For a subscription business to make money,
it must bill and collect from customers.
make money
bill
collect

5. Too bad it’s simpler to say than do
Traditional systems are slow, inaccurate and
unable to scale
The devil’s in
the details of
requirements
and
architecture.

6. Challenges
•
•
•
•
Automation
Accuracy
Agility
Analytics

7. Advertise
Web Visits
$$$$$
Conversions
Build Repeat Business
One Decision –
multiple orders

8. Order
Linear Processing Flow
Linear ERP Systems
Transactional
•Online
•Customer
Service
Get
Paid
•Credit
Cards
•Invoices
•PayPal
Ship
• Inventory
• Fulfillment
• Shipping

9. Transactional back office
systems fail
Recurring Billing
Initial Sales
Process
Renew
Upsell
Crosssell
Traditional transactional systems don’t
support recurrence
Multiple
Concurrent
Subscriptions
Usage Based Charges
Credit Card
Expiry, Fraud, etc.
9

10. So What Happens?
•
Improvisation
– Track in Excel
– Ticketing systems
•
Pilot Projects
Security Risks
Errors &
Revenue
Leakage
– Quick and Dirty development projects
•
Or long and twisted development projects
Lack of
Visibility
Barriers to
Scale

11. Why Automate?

12. The key benefit of automation is automation…
•
Process Payments
– Automate collections, retries, client notifications
•
Process renewals – and expiries
•
Reduce people power – increase ability to scale
•
Outsource security issues
– Note that most shopping cart platforms don’t store credit
cards

13. Accuracy
•
Get paid before shipping
– Properly calculate amounts (discounts, coupons, taxes)
– Collect automatically
• Notify downstream systems of problems!
– Invoicing and Account statusing
•
Ship the right things
– Manage change
– Customer self-service
– Central view of customer orders
•
Stop delivering …

14. Agility – cope with pricing changes
•
Seasonal offerings
•
Upgrade Options
•
Variations
•
Promotions / Coupons
•
Customer lifecycle:
– Cancel
– Renew
– Options

15. Analytics
•
So, what are we selling anyway?
•
What geographies are performing
well?
•
What online programs bring us long
term customers?
•
How long do customers subscribe
for?

16. Accounting
•
Accurate Taxes
•
Discounts, Write-offs
•
Earned vs Deferred
Revenues
•
Cash vs Revenue

17. Brief Demo – Monthly Soap Delivery
Basic offering – soap and shampoo
Premium Plan – Salon quality soaps
Options to purchase extra or upgrade

18. Contact Fusebill
sales@Fusebill.com
stevea@Fusebill.com
1-888-519-1425