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Moving your business towards a recurring revenue model can be challenging when you consider your existing customer base as well as new customers you will entering into agreements with. If you’ve traditionally sold your products or services outright, it can be difficult to navigate the pitfalls of trading ownership for experience. Managing various subscription types can be daunting: How do we transition our existing customers to a new subscription type? How do we manage various subscription types from a financial perspective without overburdening our finance team? How can we ensure accuracy? To navigate these complexities, we explore 3 key financial areas that can streamline the process between outright ownership and subscription success. There are so many subscription types to consider and you might have several that you need to manage: it could be based on per-unit or consumption. It could be software subscriptions or linked to a physical asset or product. It could include the provision of a service linked to mileage or hours used from equipment or facilities, provided by project resources or locations. It’s imperative that the underlying billing technology can support your subscription types. It also needs to provide the flexibility to handle a change in approach should you decide to adapt your subscription offerings over time as your business evolves. This is where many businesses get stuck. Typical recurring technologies can’t take “legacy” customers into account where the provision of goods or services on your existing customers aren’t aligned with your new offerings. For this reason, it’s important in your selection that existing customers’ perpetual agreements can be translated to a subscription type. A good example includes the historic purchase of software licenses. Many companies traditionally offered software as a once-off upfront purchase with a recurring annual fee. To streamline this process of transition, you need to align this annual fee with an end-date in order to transition your customer to your new offering (with the ability to pro-rate if you’re working with a fixed start date on the new agreement). The subscription technology should be able to support this alignment of your existing customer base to prevent errors and manual intervention which can hamper your revenue efforts. Billing periods is often a topic which causes many headaches. Depending on our offerings there could be a combination of calendar periods and rolling periods. Whilst calendar periods are generally easy to manage some per-unit subscription or consumption-based subscription types could require rolling periods. As the core concept of subscription models are rooted in the notion of “it never ends”, it can be really hard for businesses to transition their existing customers easily from an existing billing period (pro-rated) to a new billing period or billing period type based on the new agreement. In order to ramp-up your subscription business, adequately planning your subscription road map provides you with the blueprint you need to define key factors that will play a large role in your success as a subscription-based business. When you consider a technology road map for your subscription model, you need to focus on customer billing, the complexities of your subscription and the related financials with your business strategy in mind. Contact us here for a meaningful discussion about supportive technologies that drive subscription success. JTNDc3R5bGUlMjB0eXBlJTNEJTIydGV4dCUyRmNzcyUyMiUzRSUwQSUwOS5vdXRsb29rLTM2NS1pZnJhbWUlMjAlN0IlMEElMDklMDloZWlnaHQlM0ElMjAyMDAwcHglM0IlMEElMDklN0QlMEElMEElMDklNDBtZWRpYSUyMHNjcmVlbiUyMGFuZCUyMCUyOG1pbi13aWR0aCUzQTE1OTFweCUyOSUyMCU3QiUwQSUwOSUwOS5vdXRsb29rLTM2NS1pZnJhbWUlMjAlN0IlMEElMDklMDklMDloZWlnaHQlM0ElMjAxNTAwcHglM0IlMEElMDklMDklN0QlMEElMDklN0QlMEElM0MlMkZzdHlsZSUzRQ==[tabbed_section style="minimal_alt" alignment="center" spacing="default" tab_color="Accent-Color" cta_button_style="accent-color" icon_size="24"][tab icon_family="fontawesome" title="Contact Us" id="1618584569280-4" icon_fontawesome="fa fa-envelope-open-o" tab_id="1618584569286-10"][/tab][tab icon_family="fontawesome" title="Set Meeting" id="1618584569390-9" icon_fontawesome="fa fa-calendar" tab_id="1618584569392-5"]JTNDaWZyYW1lJTIwY2xhc3MlM0QlMjJvdXRsb29rLTM2NS1pZnJhbWUlMjIlMjBzcmMlM0QlMjJodHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRm91dGxvb2sub2ZmaWNlMzY1LmNvbSUyRm93YSUyRmNhbGVuZGFyJTJGYmx1ZWZvcnQxJTQwYmx1ZWZvcnQuZXUlMkZib29raW5ncyUyRiUyMiUyMHdpZHRoJTNEJTIyMTAwJTI1JTIyJTIwc2Nyb2xsaW5nJTNEJTIyeWVzJTIyJTIwc3R5bGUlM0QlMjJib3JkZXIlM0EwJTIyJTNFJTNDJTJGaWZyYW1lJTNFClick the button below to open up my calendar and find the right date and time for us to have a chat.[/tab][/tabbed_section]

Many businesses that operate on a subscription model (like SaaS providers or companies providing business services on subscription or box subscription retailers), choose to allow partners to resell their offering. With many brands this is the normal operating mode, like in the Microsoft channel where most sales and customer services are partner-network driven. In a partner channel, resellers of a subscription from the provider get commissions and incentives to resell or bundle up the subscription with their own services to customers. If your business is using sales channels, such as resellers, brokers, partners, VARs, dealers, agents or consultancy firms, tracking of all sales of licenses and subscriptions against the channel becomes a critical business requirement, including the calculation of commission or royalties. If you’re needing to automate the process of selling trough a partner channel and capturing commission in a highly automated and efficient fashion, then read more about how Bluefort’s Licensing and Subscription App for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance, Commerce and Supply Chain management deals with this requirement. You can also download our Partner Guide here. If you’ve got partners, building your channel is a core activity for you. The driver for a healthy relationship between your business and your partner channel is to generate successful end-customer relations and revenue. That revenue will create subscription-based commissions for partners and will give you more market reach to end customers. However, maintaining a solid flow of events in the business administration of your business does have a myriad of activities to deal with. Let’s have a look at the flow of information. You sign-up new partners with a partner plans providing commission; Your partner drives a sales cycle for your license or subscriptions to an end-customer; Your partner closes a new deal and re-sells your licenses or subscription; Your partner upsells additional licenses and subscriptions; You change your license and subscription plans on renewal (indexing or price changes) and need to inform your partners and end-customers; Your partner has an end-customer that stops using the licenses or subscriptions. At first glance these activities look straightforward and manageable, and they are if you have a handful of partners. But if you engage with a partner channel across the globe, with different currencies and plans or agreements, your finance and administration team might have a very different view on matters!   The automation starts with the mapping of the partner journey as well as the end-customer journey into your own finance team’s journey to manage the transactional interaction. Let’s follow the recruit-to-sell and quote-to-cash cycle to explain the different steps.   The process of onboarding partners starts with a joined view on opportunities and results into an agreement between the subscription provider and the partner reselling the subscriptions. To reflect the agreement most subscription providers, offer partner programs or plans. Each plan has tiers in terms of sales volume and revenue generated, resulting into commission pay-outs on a periodic basis. To automate the commission calculation, the basis of the calculation must be determined. Best practice is to keep things simple. With our applications in conjunctions with Dynamics 365 Finance, we offer the following practices for recording agreements: Create partners as suppliers and indirect customers in Dynamics 365 Finance Setup incentive schemes to capture a percentage of all revenue invoiced based on the partner plan or schema Setup tiers for commission, like over 100K revenue high percentage of commission reflecting e.g. bronze, silver and gold partnership tiers Connect all sales agreements to the partner (see below) In this manner, all sales will be driven towards automatic calculation of the partner commission plan which each invoice produced for the subscription sales. The calculated commission can be made payable to the partner by generating a proposed commission claim using the broker management standard functionality that links up with Bluefort’s License and Subscription Application. Now your partner commission calculations and payments are automated! At this point we have the partner program and commission payment process optimised. Let’s focus on managing partner pipeline in Microsoft Dynamics 365. First, we can use Bluefort’s add-in for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales to capture subscription sales opportunities and quotations. Alternatively, we can use the opportunity and quotation features in Microsoft Dynamics 356 Supply Chain Management. The required fields to enter a subscription are added to the sales quotation. Each quotation and opportunity are linked to the partner selling it, making it easy to track partner pipelines with a team of partner managers that support the channel. When the sales pursuit comes to a close, you can enter the subscription plan into the license and subscription cockpit, including all required data and information, such as: The term of the agreement; The renewal conditions; The revenue and cost recognition tied to this agreement; Any pre-payments or deposits; Subscription products (linked to the product information management module in Supply Chain management) Commercial price and discounts as per agreement; When the details are entered in the License and Subscription App, the subscription can be made effective so that automatic billing and other actions can be automated. It is also possible to get the subscription from Microsoft Dynamics 365 eCommerce, from Sana or from Magento eCommerce sites, so that your B2B or B2C customer can actually create their own subscription orders that are pushed into the Licence and Subscription App in Microsoft Dynamics 365. This enables you to establish a modern subscription self-service capability for your customer and provide them with ways to self-manage their subscriptions. Kindly note that this does require some custom configuration to reflect your eCommerce sites using one of the above options. Once the subscription is activated and invoiced using the automated action framework, the following automation can be triggered: Create and send customer invoice via PDF and email; Create partner commission transaction and send email to partner; Create all required revenue transactions in accordance to compliance; One of the aspects that makes licence and subscription administration complex is continued changes. Partners can receive add-on orders or increases in subscription volumes and quantities. Changes on subscription plans or agreements require updates to the agreement and adding new products from a specific date. The updates to licenses or subscriptions can be triggered ideally from a partner portal or end user portal or eCommerce site, promoting self-service. The result is an up to date subscription, reflecting changed and new licenses, entitlements, and deliveries that the end customer is entitled to based on the updated subscription. The change management mechanism to reflect partner driven changes is based on re-opening the subscription and create all required changes (add new subscription lines or change volume or quantities) and activating the subscription for automation processing. In turn, this adds on to the partners commission based on the partner commission model. Based on policy changes in line with terms and conditions partner will need to be informed about any new index changes for impacting their end customers. At the same time, it is key to provide partners with details about upcoming renewals of current licenses and subscriptions. Bluefort’s License and Subscription App relates to Microsoft Power Automate so that any license or subscription changes are immediately triggering email notification to partners. This automation drives strong automated notification management to your partners and relays upcoming changes instantly. In turn, partners can inform their end-customers. Ready to scale up your subscription business? Contact us and take the next step here to gain the competitive edge with a modern subscription management solution. 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A preferred solution on Microsoft AppSource, Bluefort’s License and Subscription App (LISA) enables you to modernise, automate and optimise your licencing and subscription processes. LISA is purpose-built in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and operates seamlessly with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and Commerce. We’re proud to share new features available in the October 2020 release in addition to the already-powerful capabilities of LISA: Master Contracts – we’re excited that customers can now group subscriptions into a Master Contract. Vendor Contracts – Need to manage supplier subscription contracts? It is now possible to create vendor-only contracts from the brand-new vendor contract cockpit! Product linked templates - It is now possible to link subscription templates to a released subscription product. When this product is added to a plan as a plan line, the linked templates are created as plans for the same customer or customer master contract. Copy lines function – Need to copy from one subscription plan into another? It is now possible to copy plan lines from another subscription plan line without copying the header. Rounding – Easily manage rounding on a plan as well as on individual line level. Improved add-ons functionality – Do you have complex subscription plans with additional “add-ons” customers can subscribe to? We’ve improved Add-Ons functionality with an Icon, and you can also specify the add-on percent based on the full parent-amount or discounted parent-amount, etc. Churn reason code – We’re all human and sometimes humans make mistakes. Easily distinguish between user errors and customer cancellations. It is now possible to define the Churn reason code. A reason code must be provided when cancelling a plan in order to manage churned plans separately from cancellations due to user errors. This feature improves analytics on customer churn. Credit note function – Sometimes Credit Notes are necessary in the subscription business. It is now possible to create a credit note from a specific date for one or more selected subscription plan lines. Plan line Billing Posting Profile - It is now possible to override the header Billing Posting Profile with a Billing Posting Profile on the plan line level. Automatic Billing Posting Profiles - It is now possible to set automatic posting profiles per Billing Posting Profile which are automatically selected based on the number of remaining months in a cycle. Revenue recognition enhancements – Users now have the capability to specify manual revenue and cost recognition amounts on the plan line if needed. Default order settings on customer - When firming an action of type: “Sales Order" or “Purchase Order”, the logic can link to the default Order settings on the Customer, if not set on the Item level. This provides greater flexibility for streamlined management of subscriptions. Quotation and Project line details - Creating Quotation lines and Project Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) line details for a subscription item is now more flexible. We've also made some minor enhancements to data jobs to be executed.Are you ready to modernise your subscription management processes and scale up? Contact us here for a meaningful discussion about supportive technologies that drive subscription success. Click here to open up my calendar and find the right date and time for us to have a chat.

The subscription economy has outperformed every leading market growth indicator in terms of revenue growth for more than five years, leading more and more businesses to re-evaluate their business models. However, the increased administrative tasks associated with a subscription model can be burdensome and negatively impact adoption, with unrealised revenue and manual intervention crippling its success. Bluefort’s innovative Licence and Subscription Management App (LISA) offers a simplified approach to these problems within the familiarity of Dynamics 365. LISA has now been added to Nexer Dynamics’ portfolio of products and services, offering its clients a smarter and more elegant way to manage their license subscriptions or managed services business model. “We’re excited to partner with Nexer Dynamics on this initiative. The Bluefort LISA is embedded within the Dynamics 365 framework and delivers significant value to customers who are managing subscriptions”, said Shaun McKay, Director of Operations at Bluefort UK. Thanks to the partnership, Nexer Dynamics can now help clients across all industries to simplify and improve every aspect of subscription management, including process automation, data analytics, customer experience and compliance with GDPR, IFRS 15 and ASC 606. “The partnership with Bluefort strengthens our offering and value add to our customers. Bluefort’s products, services and culture perfectly align to the needs of our clients and I’m looking forward to an exciting future working together”, said Colin Crow, Managing Director at Nexer Dynamics.   Learn more about Bluefort’s subscription software and partnerships Partner Click here to open up my calendar and find the right date and time for us to have a chat.

Moving your business towards a recurring revenue model can be challenging and it’s a two-part process: implementing the subscription offering itself and ensuring that you can support the model from a technology perspective. If you’ve traditionally sold your products or services outright, it can be difficult to navigate the pitfalls of trading ownership for experience. How do you safeguard your revenue with slow moving products or services? How do you manage customers who have enjoyed specific pricing discounts for many years? How do you manage the appeal of custom offers when you're striving to standardise? To gain the traction you need, we explore 3 key areas that can close the gap faster between outright ownership and subscription success. You see this when you make Retail purchases daily: “buy-2-for-1”, “combo-special” or “buy-3-get-cheapest-free”. The concept of bundling has been hugely successful in the Retail space and there’s no reason for Subscription-based business not to take advantage of this as well. Bundling provides the perfect opportunity to boost slower performing products or services and to increase the overall subscription value. If you’re a niche player or a larger enterprise with many divisions, bundling also provides the opportunity to extend your offering to the benefit of the customer by including products or services from partners. As more companies standardise their offerings, personal tailoring weighs heavily on both your existing customer base as well as being a competitive play for new business. Tiered approaches provide a mechanism to achieve a standardised approach which can further be tailored with add-ons or restrictions, depending on the customer’s base subscription. The key benefit which makes this approach so attractive for subscription businesses is the lowered risk associated with human error and the potential up-sell and cross-sell gains. Whilst personalised pricing is not a headache for start-ups, it can be for companies moving toward subscription. Many established relationships have been nurtured with customers over the years, starting from an initial discounted engagement. When a company replaces their ERP, a common question usually includes: “Does your system offer Customer Trade Agreements or per-Customer Pricelists?”. Whether your price point is based on geographical location or customised toward long-standing customer relationships, it’s important that this element forms part of your strategic road map from outright ownership to subscription. In fact, many businesses today attribute a sizeable portion of their revenue to key accounts. Factor in your key accounts when planning your model. In order to ramp-up your subscription business, customer-centricity and team enablement is part of the foundation which will determine how successful it will be. The core concept of subscription is already attractive to your customer. Now you need to make it irresistible with a high-value offering which enforces the customer’s belief that you are the right partner to help them achieve their goals. Contact us here for a meaningful discussion about supportive technologies that drive subscription success. JTNDc3R5bGUlMjB0eXBlJTNEJTIydGV4dCUyRmNzcyUyMiUzRSUwQSUwOS5vdXRsb29rLTM2NS1pZnJhbWUlMjAlN0IlMEElMDklMDloZWlnaHQlM0ElMjAyMDAwcHglM0IlMEElMDklN0QlMEElMEElMDklNDBtZWRpYSUyMHNjcmVlbiUyMGFuZCUyMCUyOG1pbi13aWR0aCUzQTE1OTFweCUyOSUyMCU3QiUwQSUwOSUwOS5vdXRsb29rLTM2NS1pZnJhbWUlMjAlN0IlMEElMDklMDklMDloZWlnaHQlM0ElMjAxNTAwcHglM0IlMEElMDklMDklN0QlMEElMDklN0QlMEElM0MlMkZzdHlsZSUzRQ==[tabbed_section style="minimal_alt" alignment="center" spacing="default" tab_color="Accent-Color" cta_button_style="accent-color" icon_size="24"][tab icon_family="fontawesome" title="Contact Us" id="1618841820176-9" icon_fontawesome="fa fa-envelope-open-o" tab_id="1618841820177-1"][/tab][tab icon_family="fontawesome" title="Set Meeting" id="1618841820217-9" icon_fontawesome="fa fa-calendar" tab_id="1618841820218-3"]JTNDaWZyYW1lJTIwY2xhc3MlM0QlMjJvdXRsb29rLTM2NS1pZnJhbWUlMjIlMjBzcmMlM0QlMjJodHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRm91dGxvb2sub2ZmaWNlMzY1LmNvbSUyRm93YSUyRmNhbGVuZGFyJTJGYmx1ZWZvcnQxJTQwYmx1ZWZvcnQuZXUlMkZib29raW5ncyUyRiUyMiUyMHdpZHRoJTNEJTIyMTAwJTI1JTIyJTIwc2Nyb2xsaW5nJTNEJTIyeWVzJTIyJTIwc3R5bGUlM0QlMjJib3JkZXIlM0EwJTIyJTNFJTNDJTJGaWZyYW1lJTNFClick the button below to open up my calendar and find the right date and time for us to have a chat.[/tab][/tabbed_section]

If you’ve never dealt with revenue recognition from a recurring billing perspective, moving your business towards subscription offerings can be challenging. If your subscription model is founded on the principle of upfront payments whilst you deliver good and services over a longer period of time, tracking the revenue correctly is an integral part of your business model. Let’s look at a simple example: We provide a monthly boxed subscription service to our customers at $10 a month, paid annually in advance. Customers pay $ 120 for the year and we have a small sign-up fee of $ 5. We receive payment of $ 125. We can’t recognise the entire $125 as revenue because we’re still to deliver the 12 boxes from their annual subscription. According to IFRS standards, at signup we can only recognise the $5 sign-up fee, even though we’ve received the full year’s subscription payment upfront ($125). From an Accounting perspective our ledger entries look like this: Account Debit Credit Accounts Receivable 125.00   Earned Revenue   5.00 Deferred Revenue   120.00 Following the AR entries, a credit is then written to the cash or bank account. Once we’ve delivered our box for the first time, we can say that we’ve fulfilled month one of this contract and we can recognise the value of month one which is $10: Account Debit Credit Deferred Revenue 110.00   Earned Revenue   10.00 Every month that we continue to fulfil the contract, $10 moves from the deferred revenue to the earned revenue, decreasing our liability and increasing our earned revenue. Keep in mind that different businesses could have different recognition schedules and you might need to accrue revenue on a daily or monthly basis depending on the accuracy you require. If your model is based on month-to-month payments with immediate cancellation, you’ll likely be managing accruals daily in order to facilitate more efficient and accurate cancellations. You also need to factor in VAT calculations at the time of invoicing and this could differ depending on your country and your customer’s country. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) encourage companies to track revenue in this manner as it provides visibility to external parties that might need access to financials statement like your bank, investors, board of directors or shareholders. Corporate tax calculations can be impacted by the amount of deferred revenue carried into future periods. Deferred revenue is a liability because it’s dependent on your business to deliver the contracted services or goods. Refunds for cancellation, especially for annual subscriptions makes handling this much more efficient if you’re accurately tracking deferred revenue. Some businesses use manual spreadsheets or standalone revenue recognition software. Neither are ideal as manual calculations are error-prone and standalone systems aren’t centralised within your Financials solution. Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain has built-in revenue recognition and if combined with Bluefort’s License and Subscription App (LISA), you have a powerful solution that not only recognises revenue at the appropriate times, but also fully automates subscription billing and purchasing process across various plan types and models. In order to ramp-up your subscription business, tracking revenue accurately will play a big role in how successful you are in making the shift to recurring revenue. When you consider a technology road map for your subscription model, you need to focus on customer billing, the complexities of your subscription and the related financials with your business strategy in mind. Contact us here for a meaningful discussion about supportive technologies that drive subscription success.   JTNDc3R5bGUlMjB0eXBlJTNEJTIydGV4dCUyRmNzcyUyMiUzRSUwQSUwOS5vdXRsb29rLTM2NS1pZnJhbWUlMjAlN0IlMEElMDklMDloZWlnaHQlM0ElMjAyMDAwcHglM0IlMEElMDklN0QlMEElMEElMDklNDBtZWRpYSUyMHNjcmVlbiUyMGFuZCUyMCUyOG1pbi13aWR0aCUzQTE1OTFweCUyOSUyMCU3QiUwQSUwOSUwOS5vdXRsb29rLTM2NS1pZnJhbWUlMjAlN0IlMEElMDklMDklMDloZWlnaHQlM0ElMjAxNTAwcHglM0IlMEElMDklMDklN0QlMEElMDklN0QlMEElM0MlMkZzdHlsZSUzRQ==[tabbed_section style="minimal_alt" alignment="center" spacing="default" tab_color="Accent-Color" cta_button_style="accent-color" icon_size="24"][tab icon_family="fontawesome" title="Contact Us" id="1618842386765-1" icon_fontawesome="fa fa-envelope-open-o" tab_id="1618842386766-6"][/tab][tab icon_family="fontawesome" title="Set Meeting" id="1618842386831-4" icon_fontawesome="fa fa-calendar" tab_id="1618842386833-2"]JTNDaWZyYW1lJTIwY2xhc3MlM0QlMjJvdXRsb29rLTM2NS1pZnJhbWUlMjIlMjBzcmMlM0QlMjJodHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRm91dGxvb2sub2ZmaWNlMzY1LmNvbSUyRm93YSUyRmNhbGVuZGFyJTJGYmx1ZWZvcnQxJTQwYmx1ZWZvcnQuZXUlMkZib29raW5ncyUyRiUyMiUyMHdpZHRoJTNEJTIyMTAwJTI1JTIyJTIwc2Nyb2xsaW5nJTNEJTIyeWVzJTIyJTIwc3R5bGUlM0QlMjJib3JkZXIlM0EwJTIyJTNFJTNDJTJGaWZyYW1lJTNFClick the button below to open up my calendar and find the right date and time for us to have a chat.[/tab][/tabbed_section]

A preferred solution on Microsoft AppSource, Bluefort’s License and Subscription App (LISA) enables you to modernise, automate and optimise your licencing and subscription processes. LISA is purpose-built in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and operates seamlessly with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and Commerce. We’re proud to share new features available now in addition to the already-powerful capabilities of LISA: Discount functionality on subscription plan lines – We’re excited that customers can now inherit discounts from standard Trade Agreements or specify a discount on the subscription plan line itself. Trade Agreements are a powerful capability within Dynamics 365 which enables you to work with specific agreed pricing between one or more customers. Price and Discount Indexing - This feature provides more advanced and granular management of prices and discounts by allowing scenarios such as price-grandfathering and trials. This capability adds real value to drive customer-focused needs and differentiate from your competitors. Subscription templates - It is now possible to save a subscription plan (and its lines) as templates and to create subscription plans from existing templates. This new feature takes bundled offerings to new heights for businesses wanting to replicate certain offerings for more customers. Subscription copy functionality - It is now possible to copy a subscription plan (and its lines) from the same customer or another customer. This is particularly helpful when you need to configure a subscription for a new customer, using a similar subscription as your starting point. Improved renewal functionality - Subscriptions terms can be created on a subscription plan level. These can be configured to auto-renew to other subscription plans using a subscription chain. Auto-cancellation of the subscription plan line level remains available. This feature extends the already powerful capabilities which LISA has in easily managing complex subscriptions. Project hours entitlements - It is now possible to set project hours entitlements for subscription plans linked to a project. Project hours can be linked to a specific role, a specific activity or for all roles and activities within a project. Standard subscription plans for projects - On the product level it is now possible to configure whether standard or project subscription plans are generated from a project Enhancements to subscription plan creation from projects - It is now possible to see which subscription products configured in a Project's Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) has already been published to a subscription plan. A parameter also controls whether the same WBS product can be transferred more than once. Enhanced granular security configuration – There are two new roles available for LISA: Subscription Manager and Subscription Project Manager. The introduction of these additional roles help business further refine their security and policies within the Dynamics 365 framework. Subscription notifications – We’re excited about subscription notifications which enable Business Event triggers in Dynamics 365. Business events provide a mechanism that lets external systems receive notifications from Finance and Operations applications. In this way, the systems can perform business actions in response to the business event. Subsequently this new feature provides great opportunities to enable the integration with the Power Platform, Dataflex, Azure Functions and more! We’ve added more Inquiry forms for enhanced analysis of subscription data – this delivers improved contextual information where you need it most. Enhanced Forecasting functionality drives insights into future cashflow scenarios of your subscriptions. Enhanced Power BI dashboards and reports deliver improved analytics to make better decisions, faster! Overall Performance improvements and enhanced Integration functionality from external systems or online stores. Are you ready to modernise your subscription management processes and scale up? Contact us here for a meaningful discussion about supportive technologies that drive subscription success. Click here to open up my calendar and find the right date and time for us to have a chat.

No one joins a recurring services business because it’s easy.   In fact, it can feel like you’re walking a tightrope. You’ve got to deliver a top-notch service, keep those subscriptions ticking over, make sure billing runs accurately, keep your customers happy, and attract new customers too.   Here are some of the biggest challenges you’re up against:  Customer Retention, Support and Management: Keeping customers engaged and loyal in the most competitive era without a centralised system to help track them and their data   Subscription Management: Manually processing subscriptions costs you untold money and thousands of work hours a year.    Financial Management: Invoicing, payroll, and tax filing is complex and tedious, and errors cost money and compliance fines.  Project Management: Keeping track of projects and monitoring progress can be nearly impossible.    Team Communication: Silos, especially with the remote teams, are extremely costly and can drive up employee turnover.   Reliable Numbers and Data: Without accurate numbers and the analytics that customer data can give you, you’re operating in the dark It’s a lot. But there’s good news.   It all gets a lot easier when you have the right tools to smash out the challenges that keep you awake at night. Here are the top 8 tools that can help you turn things around for good:   1. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software    When you’ve got a good CRM system, you’ve got a virtual personal assistant that boosts customer relationships. It manages customer data, tracks all  interactions, and helps you improve your Customer Lifetime Value.   But not all CRM systems are the same. Avoid complexity where it isn’t needed. The easier your CRM is to use, the easier it will be to scale.   2. Accounting Software The better hold you’ve got on your financial picture, the more likely you are to be successful. The best accounting software will simplify and stabilise everything from invoicing, payroll, tax filing and compliance. Flexi found that it can cut your operating expenses by up to 50% too.    It cuts the risk of mistakes, and gives you numbers you can have confidence in. You can see your cash flow, profit and loss, and balance sheet at a glance. That’s how you make the best decisions possible 3. Project Management Software Project management software keeps all your projects on track with very little effort on your behalf. According to a PWC study, 77% of high performing projects use project management software.   These tools allow you to assign tasks, allocate resources, set deadlines, and monitor progress. With real-time information flow, you’ll know who’s working on what, deadlines coming up, and how much work is left to be done. Your teams will be happier because there’s no waiting around, no shortage of resources, no unhappy customers, and no delays. 4.  Social Media Management Tools  Having a strong social media presence is a requirement, not a preference these days. But running social media, especially on multiple platforms can be a very big job. You need something that will save as much time as possible.   The right tools let you or your team schedule posts, automatically engage with your audience, and analyze the performance of your content so that you boost impact and conversions.  5. Cybersecurity Software When you’ve got effective cybersecurity software, you’re protecting your business data and your customers. Which is important because the last thing you need is the financial and reputational damage caused by a data breach.  The right solution will not only keep everything locked down, but will make recommendations and warn you when necessary.   6. Communication Tools It’s key to knock down all the information silos you have between teams in your company. Platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams connect people in real-time an eliminate the time wasted chasing calls and emails. But more than that, the right tool will let information free-flow in real time - usage numbers, contract terms, payments and reconciliation - they all require the best communication possible.    According to McKinsey, organizations that communicate effectively are 4.5 times more likely to retain their best employees. That’s important because turnover is expensive - it can cost 1.5 x the salary of a tech sales rep just to replace them 7. Analytics Tools There’s no point in sitting on data because when it’s used properly, it’s like gold dust. The right analytics will give you insights into customer segmentation, selling opportunities, financial forecasts - everything you need to take your company forward.   According to Forbes, companies who adopt data-driven marketing are six times more likely to be profitable year-over-year. When you understand what your data’s saying to you, you can make the best long-term growth-driving decisions.  8. End-to-End Subscription Management Software An end-to-end subscription management software, will automate and secure all the important stuff for you, from sales opportunities to payments and reconciliation.   It’s a fact that automation leads to growth. It saves untold manual hours, creates the best sales opportunities, avoids the risk and loss that comes with manual billing and payment collection, and boosts customer satisfaction All for a lot less effort from you and your teams. In fact, 73% of IT leaders say that automation has saved their teams 10-50% of the time they previously spent on manual tasks.  You’ll also get accurate numbers, insights into customer behaviour and revenue forecasts, and complete revenue recognition.  But perhaps the biggest benefit of a subscription management software is its impact on the customer and employee experience. Both will have a seamless experience that gives them everything they need with none of the hassle.   And that literally is something you can take to the bank.