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The finance team has a big responsibility in an IT Services company:  Ensuring a smooth flow of revenue  Maintaining accurate fiscal reporting  Safeguarding compliance with financial regulations  The problem is that most of the time, this team has to contend with tons of frustrating challenges that lead to inefficiency, mistakes, and emotional and physical burnout.   As the CRO, this is something you’re probably already aware of. Your team may have experienced it. But maybe you’re unsure about how to solve the problem.   That’s why we’ve written an article to dive into these problems and give you an actionable roadmap to get your team out, and back to where they should be.   Which Problems Cause a Finance Team the Most Frustration  The finance team has to fend off challenges each day. Fighting constant battles with little or no real help or solutions can take a real toll on both the team’s performance and them as individuals. Here are some of the biggest offenders:   Too much manual entry work: It is soul-sapping, boring, and monotonous. It is also a major waste of time. The finance team will spend countless hours inputting data, changing data, fixing data errors, and reconciling everything. When work is mundane, you get frustration and a drop in productivity.  Delays in reporting and closing fiscal periods: Both of these are time-sensitive tasks. But these important activities are often delayed because of mistakes, inconsistencies, understaffing, scaling, or the sheer pile of work that needs to be done. Next thing you know, it disrupts financial planning and decision-making processes throughout the business.   Invoice mistakes: Though accurate invoicing is essential to a company’s success, mistakes are common. And they are deadly for a company’s financial health. The finance team must scramble to juggle credits, disputes, and strained client relationships. They also have to give up a huge chunk of their time to it. It’s the last thing they need.   Revenue in limbo: Delayed contracts, unfulfilled obligations, and unresolved disputes can prevent complete revenue recognition, throwing uncertainty over you and the team. When revenue is in limbo, the finance team has to untie the backlog and improve cash flow management and financial planning.   Incomplete revenue recognition: Incomplete or inaccurate revenue recognition can distort the company's financial picture. This distortion can complicate decision-making and strategic planning, adding extra pressure on the finance team to ensure accuracy in revenue reporting.  Delayed customer onboarding: Onboarding can be an intensive process. But it can drag to slow and cumbersome The process of onboarding new customers is often slow and cumbersome. When you add poor communication and a lack of information between teams, delays can postpone revenue generation and hurt customer relationships.    Delayed payments: Late payments from customers require constant chasing from the team, and they disrupt the company's cash flow. This makes it further difficult for the finance team to meet their own obligations and pay invoices to suppliers. It also makes it hard to plan for the future.   All these issues can make the team’s life extremely difficult from the time they start work in the morning till the end of the day.   The Impact of These Problems  These frustrations within the finance team can have a profound impact on both the team itself and the company as a whole.   It impacts you as the CRO. You have to account for inaccurate financial forecasting, strained relationships with other departments due to delayed reporting, and a constant state of damage control.   This situation spells stress for everyone involved. It crushes your team’s morale. It impacts your ability to focus on strategy and the future.   And the company must tackle inefficient operations, employee turnover, and bad customer relationships thanks to delays and dispute resolution.    In other words, no one’s happy.   5 Actions to Empower Your Finance Team  The great news is that there are things you can do as the CRO to turn things around for your team (and everyone else!). Here are some of the actionable steps:  1. Streamline All Your Revenue Processes It’s important to lay a good foundation for success by simplifying everything as much as possible. That means standardising financial processes so that the team feels as supported as possible. They need their jobs to be as easy as possible so that takes are more manageable for the team.   2. Give Your Teams All The Training They Need When you give your team regular training sessions, you ensure that they know what they are doing and how to avoid expensive and demoralising mistakes. They work faster, with fewer mistakes and feel better about their impact on the company and customers.   3. Open Up Communication Silos can kill a team’s impact. That’s why it’s key to take steps to open up the flow of 24-7 communication between teams. That doesn’t mean that your teams have to be on the phone or emailing each other every hour on the day. But it does mean accurate information sharing that’s accessible to who needs it. And perhaps periodical meetings between teams too. Poen and clear communication improves collaboration and efficiency and cuts down on misunderstandings and mistakes.  4. Adopt Robust Reviews Quality control is important because it can help catch mistakes early so they can be stopped before snowballing into serious problems. Checks and balances in your financial processes take a lot of pressure off everyone because the system gets proactive instead of reactive when it’s too late.  5. Bring In Automation For Your Team and Processes This is the action that can transform the situation most because it relieves your team of the burdens of what causes the team trouble in the first place.   Automation takes care of the actions above for you. It-  drastically reduces manual data entry  streamlines and simplifies processes   enables accurate and fast reporting   ensures onboarding meets deadlines   reduces the need for extensive training   enables real-time communication between teams  constantly ensures accuracy   minimizes invoice errors  expedites customer onboarding  ensures timely revenue recognition and payments  enables growth and scaling without complications   Giving your team, your company, and yourself automation clears all the boring, mundane, awful, crushing work out of the way so that everyone can concentrate on doing the work that honors their talents and goals.   And that’s what a successful company is really all about!  It Can All be Yours   As the CRO, you do have to deal with a lot of obstacles. But one of the most difficult obstacles is a stressed-out, burned-out finance team.   But when you understand the underlying causes, it’s a lot easier to take proactive measures to solve the problem.   You can have a happier and more efficient finance team and better performance for both you and the company.   It’s all about taking action- or letting automation take the action for you.  Either way, you win.  When you were brought on as CFO, no doubt you had a very clear idea of how you wanted to move the company forward.   But you know that when you’re too busy chasing small payments, you won’t have the time to do the things you want and need to do.  However, taking proactive steps to get to the root of this problem will empower both you and your finance team to improve efficiency and enhance the financial stability and growth of your company.   Why not start that dedicated move to financial excellence now?   Say goodbye to manual sales processes and boost your growth with Bluefort's cutting-edge automation solutions. Learn how our end-to-end system streamlines the end-to-end process. 

As a CRO in the IT Services industry, you’re in charge of driving revenue growth for your company. The buck literally stops with you.   No pressure, right?   Chances are you’ve got one big challenge that’s about as fun as trying to get gum knots out of your kid’s hair.  It’s revenue recognition.   Incomplete revenue recognition.   We’ll bet you shivered at the thought of it. We don’t blame you.   Causes of Incomplete Revenue Recognition  It’s only after you understand the root cause of a big knotty mess that you can find a solution. So what are the root causes of incomplete revenue recognition in IT Services?  1. Inconsistent billing practices It’s impossible to have accurate recognised revenue when billing practices are all over the place. Without standardized procedures, workers must rely on their own interpretations of guidelines.   2. Regulatory changes Regulations and standards are always in flux, and they vary from country to country. It’s extremely hard to keep up with every regulation all the time, and even harder to adapt to them. When they’re not managed properly, you get errors, changes in contracts, and incomplete revenue recognition.  3. Complex revenue streams In IT Services, revenue flows through multiple streams including project-based billing, recurring subscriptions, usage-based charges, add-ons, etc. They make complete recognised revenue across all streams really difficult.   4. Manual processes They steal your time, and leave the field wide open for errors. Even little mistakes can set off chain reactions that take ages to spot and sort out.   5. Silos Many IT services companies use different legacy systems for project management, billing, operations, and finance. Without integration, you’ll get inconsistency in data. Or missing data. Or data that was entered in too late. That’s more revenue leakage.   These issues don't exist in isolation either. When they intersect, they compound, and make things exponentially worse for your teams and your company.   And that can lead to some real problems that will keep you tied up.   Impacts of Incomplete Revenue Recognition  There are far-reaching consequences to incomplete revenue recognition. And it doesn’t just impact your business, but your teams, your customers, and your reputation as a leader.   Here are some of the results of incomplete recognised revenue:   Unstable Revenue/Revenue Leakage Fluctuations in reported revenue make it hard if not impossible to accurately forecast and strategize for the future.    Wasted Hours Time is the most valuable resource we have- after all, it can’t be replaced! When finance teams are stuck rectifying mistakes, they have less (if any) time left to work on strategic tasks that bring value to the company.  Stress The last thing a revenue team needs is unnecessary stress. But they’ll have it in bucketloads. And this will impact morale, risking employee turnover and burnout.  Damages Other Teams When you can’t rely on your numbers, it’s a struggle to stick to budget allocations for other departments. This hinders their planning and operations. Customer Relations Anytime billing is inaccurate, there will be problems with clients and customers. And disputes jeopardise customer lifetime value and growth.  Revenue Decisions When you’re forced to juggle inaccurate data and numbers, you can’t make good decisions. You might have to rely on guesswork. And this can impact you and the company.  So now we know about the causes and impacts of incomplete revenue recognition. So what can be done to untie this massive mess and streamline your recognized revenue?   Fortunately, there are solutions.   6 Actionable Steps to Stop Incomplete Recognised Revenue  The good news is that there are actionable steps you can take to free yourself, and get that revenue fully recognized.   Here are some of the most effective, and depending on your situation, can be used together and in combinations.   1. Standardize Billing Policies that are clear and firm will ensure better consistency and accuracy. That’s less likelihood of mistakes and more likelihood of catching the ones that slip between the cracks.   2. Cutting-edge Training It’s important to invest in your teams so that they’re equipped with the knowledge they need to succeed. And the more they know about regulations and standards, the more they’ll know about how they impact revenue recognition.    3. Data Accuracy Having a regimented schedule to check and ensure data accuracy is a must. Reviews can help spot discrepancies early on, which can stop small mistakes from turning into revenue leaks (or gushes).  4. A Dedicated Revenue Recognition Team Having a specialised team just focused on revenue recognition frees up the finance team to work on the strategic tasks and projects you want to be enacted. It makes things more focused too. It reduces stress and the likelihood of burnout/turnover.   5. Smash Those Silos Your customer, revenue, sales, operations and development teams will need to communicate with each other, whether through software or at regularly scheduled meetings. When everyone’s informed, mistakes plummet. And all the teams are less frustrated.   6. Automate the Entire End-to-End You might balk at how realistic it is to have end-to-end automated, but it really is possible. And it does all the steps for you.  Automation standardizes billing, keeps up with changes in regulations and adjusts to them, shares information between teams in real-time, ensures accuracy, and provides real-time visibility into recognized revenue. And it even automatically integrates changes in contracts (due to add-ons, new products, cross-selling, readjustment to align with usage, etc).   In other words, whatever changes are thrown your way, automation takes them off your shoulders.   When you automate these processes, you can say goodbye to human errors, wasted hours, and inefficiency.  And say hello to accurate numbers that you can take to the bank at any time. Literally and figuratively.   You Can Enjoy Complete Revenue Recognition   As the CRO of IT Services, you have to deal with a lot of loose ends.   That’s why it’s important not to have anything around that changes them into an untangle-able mass. Incomplete revenue recognition doesn’t have to be a daunting challenge that takes you and your teams down.   It doesn’t have to be like your kids’ gummy hair.   It’s all about taking those steps to prevent it. Or letting automation do all the work for you so you can finally get back to what you were hired to do. Drive revenue and lead the company.   Ready to start? When you were brought on as CFO, no doubt you had a very clear idea of how you wanted to move the company forward.   But you know that when you’re too busy chasing small payments, you won’t have the time to do the things you want and need to do.  However, taking proactive steps to get to the root of this problem will empower both you and your finance team to improve efficiency and enhance the financial stability and growth of your company.   Why not start that dedicated move to financial excellence now?   Say goodbye to manual sales processes and boost your growth with Bluefort's cutting-edge automation solutions. Learn how our end-to-end system streamlines the end-to-end process. 

IT Services is an industry that never stops. Everything’s constantly ticking over - new tech, new offerings, new customers, new problems.   And one of the most common problems is chasing small payments.   If you’re an IT Services CFO, you probably rolled your eyes at the thought of it, muttering “YEP.”   It’s the last thing you need. You’re already in charge of keeping the fiscal health of the business tip-top. That’s enough pressure! Yet here you are, with your team, spending time on the phone and in your email trying to get these little tiny payments.   It’s a tedious, time-consuming task. It stops you from doing all the things you were hired to do.   It’s the stuff of nightmares.   That’s why we’ve written this article - to talk through this big challenge and give you some strategies that can rid you of this troublesome practice forever. Sounds good, right?  5 Main Causes of Chasing Small Payments  There’s always a cause for a resource-sucker like chasing small payments.  Do any of these sound familiar?  1. Wide Client Base It’s fairly common for an IT services company to have a wide variety of clients - could be families, students, fledgling startups, huge corporations and everything in between. Especially in this uncertain economy, people have limited budgets. That means smaller invoices that vary depending on usage tracking, and possibly more frequent payment cycles.  2. Complex Billing Models Things are always changing in IT Services. There are new products, packages and offerings for an ever-changing base. This means complex billing models based on time spent, project milestones, resource usage, subscription nature, package, etc. This complexity using creates a lot of little invoices rather than consolidated ones, which means you’re dealing with a large volume of payments that you have to manage. 3. The Dreaded Delayed Payments Some clients may delay payments due to cash flow issues, disputes over services, or simply oversight. This forces the finance team to engage in a continuous cycle of follow-ups for each outstanding invoice, further complicating the payment collection process. 4. Not Using Preferred Payment Methods Customers are human. They make mistakes. And they forget things. Businesses that are rigid with their payment methods might make customers have to take extra steps to make sure those payments are made. The more hoops they have to jump through, the less likely they’re make it all the way, every month.  5. Manual Billing Processes and Mistakes Your staff are human too. When they have to manually invoice, especially if you have thousands of customers (or more), mistakes are inevitable. But these inaccuracies will cause a chain reaction of problems - time spent recalculating and re-reconciling things, disputes, follow-ups, reissuing invoices, and additional delays in payments.  Why Having to Chase Payments Is So Dangerous   To an outsider, each missed payment might seem fairly harmless (albeit annoying) - after all, it’s only a phone call here or email there.   But each one of these adds up to a beast that you have to contend with- a beast that can create chaos for you.   1. Unstable Revenue As the CFO, you need to know where the company’s revenue is. You need reliable cash flow and numbers. But small, unpredictable payments mean you contend with fluctuations in revenue.   How are you supposed to accurately forecast future cash flows? How can you rely on your numbers for excellent financial planning?  2. Wasted Hours The one thing we can never get back in life is our time. And unpaid invoices are the biggest, unnecessary waste of time that financial teams experience. Think about how much your time is worth by the hour. Same with your finance team.   Now think about how many hours you all spend chasing those invoices. Add on top how many hours you all are not spending on high-value strategic financial tasks and analysis. Add it all together. That’s the REAL cost of chasing unpaid invoices.   3. Stress Chasing unpaid invoices is a constant pressure that will inevitably lead to higher stress levels for you and your team. The higher the stress (especially stress that doesn’t need to happen!) the more it impacts morale and productivity.  4. Impacts on Other Teams When your revenue is uncertain, that can impact others over the long term. It’s harder to confidently allocate funds to other departments. It makes things unpredictable and hinders operations and strategic planning.   5. Customer Relations No one likes getting bothered, even if they’re in the wrong! We know it’s not fair, but if you are constantly folllowing up with them for payments, you’ll strain your relationships with them.   They’ll associate your name and brand with annoyance. And that will make it a lot easier for them to leave your brand once they get a tempting offer.    All of these sound terrible. And at least a few of them might sound familiar.   What Can You Do?  The great news is that you can do something to change this. Here are some actionable steps that work to turn the tide and end chasing small payments forever:   Implement Clear Policies It’s okay to establish firm policies about late payments, including penalties or interest charges which will discourage some delayed payments. It’s important to clearly communicate these policies to your customers. One caveat- if your delayed payments are usually down to your side - things like invoice errors, usage adjustments, etc. - then this type of policy might turn your customers off!   Start Quality Control Measures Starting a system that double-checks invoices will help ensure they are accurate, detailed, and clearly itemized services. That means you can stop disputes and delays in payments before they start. Yes, it means more hours, but at least you won’t pay for rectifying invoices.  Offer Customer-Friendly Payment Options Whether that’s contract terms or the customer’s preferred payment methods, meet your customers where they are. When you make payments as effortless as possible for customers, you’ll increase your chances of getting paid on time, every time.    Create a Dedicated Collections Team A team that’s focused solely on collections will free up you and your team to focus their time on strategic tasks that take the company forward. You can train this team to communicate with customers in a way that won’t alienate them too.   Bring Automation In You could do all the things above, or you could bring in automation, which will take care of all of them for you. It’s the ultimate solution to chasing payments. Automation consolidates billing, sends reminders for upcoming payments, automatically calculates and sends out invoices, reconciles them back to the system, and provides real-time visibility to anything outstanding. When you automate the end-to-end billing process, you eliminate human error, boost reliable constant revenue, know where your finances stand at all times, and reclaim your time.  When you were brought on as CFO, no doubt you had a very clear idea of how you wanted to move the company forward.   But you know that when you’re too busy chasing small payments, you won’t have the time to do the things you want and need to do.  However, taking proactive steps to get to the root of this problem will empower both you and your finance team to improve efficiency and enhance the financial stability and growth of your company.   Why not start that dedicated move to financial excellence now?   Say goodbye to manual sales processes and boost your growth with Bluefort's cutting-edge automation solutions. Learn how our end-to-end system streamlines the end-to-end process. 

It can be really frustrating to be falling behind.   Especially when it comes to upselling and cross-selling.   When done right, they are powerful tools that can drive growth and revenue in our industry. But most COOs can’t meet their targets. And though that can cause a lot of damage, there are ways to turn things around and overcome these challenges.   Let’s have a deep dive into the big picture.   How Missed Upselling and Cross-selling Targets Impact Your Company   It can be dangerous to fall behind on these targets because you’re at risk of impacts like this:   Dented profits and revenue: Missing targets means less money coming in both in the immediate and in the long term. And this is for customers you already have and potential customers in the future. And unfortunately, revenue is key to the SaaS industry where you must constantly grow.   Disruption of your operations: Because you have to divert so many resources and so much time to the upselling and cross-selling process, the sales process slows down. The teams might feel forced to focus on customer acquisition, which has a much lower conversion rate.  Unhappy customers: When upselling and cross-selling opportunities are missed, or even worse, or are based on mistaken assumptions (whether product, current customer need, or current subscription). This makes customers feel misunderstood or ignored, and competition and churn are too high for them not to just leave for a better offer with better service.   Loss to your competitors: Staying ahead of your competition is so key, but it’s impossible if you leak revenue, get a bad reputation, and hemorrhage customers. That damages both your market position, and future investibility.   Morale: The frustrated sales team’s struggle with morale will impact future productivity. It’s a tough cycle to escape.   None of these impacts are good for your brand. And when you start to experience multiple impacts at the same time, you can get into trouble.   That’s not something you need as a COO. Because you’re responsible for the growth of the company. You’re the one who has to explain to the boardroom why things are the way they are.   What Causes Failed Upselling and Cross-selling Targets?  Through our time working with many COOs across multiple sectors of SaaS companies, we’ve discovered the most common factors that contribute to falling behind in upselling and cross-selling targets:  Limited and out-of-date knowledge of product offerings: If the sales team doesn’t understand the product offering, they won’t be able to spot upselling and cross-selling opportunities. They also won’t be able to explain a product’s value to customers. And even worse, they won’t know which products complement (or contradict!) the packages customers already have.   Incorrect or inadequate customer segmentation: If customers aren’t segmented correctly, and that segmentation isn’t regularly updated, sales teams won’t get the level of understanding that they need to sell to the right customers at the right time. Customers can’t be treated as one group – they have unique needs and preferences.   Insufficient training: If sales teams don’t have the training and resources that they need to identify opportunities and act on them, they’re at a huge disadvantage. Training should be an ongoing process too – there’s lots for sales to keep on top of including the offering and the best ways to convert customers No data-driven insight: Your freely available customer data has so much potential if you use it in the right way. Comprehensive data and analytics can give you priceless insight into your customers’ behavior, preferences, history, needs, and usage, even when they leave and why and what it would take to get them back.   Miscommunication with the marketing team: Sales and marketing must work together. Sales teams need marketing to bring in leads and content that shows value propositions for the product offering. Marketing needs feedback from sales about what customers think and why they say yes or no, to tweak their content.   No time and low morale: Sales reps simply do not have the time they need to upsell and cross-sell because they’re too busy trying to keep up with the database, liaising constantly with the revenue team, putting out fires, keeping up with customer service, etc. And they’re up against unrealistic sales targets without the resources they need to meet them. That is very bad for morale and pushes sales turnover through the roof.   The good news for COOs (and anyone else who wants to the sales team to do well) who are reading this is that acknowledging these causes is the first step in turning things around.   Actionable Solutions to the Problem  There are steps that you as a COO can take to turn things around and start bringing in the revenue you need to help grow the company and customer base Get good, reliable customer segmentation: Use your customer data to figure out the most up-to-date segment that will respond to upselling and cross-selling. Then you’ll be able to create unique messaging that meets customers where they are.  Give ongoing training: Give your team the knowledge they need about your product offerings, which products complement one another, and the most cutting-edge ways to up and cross-sell. Working with the development team will help enable information to flow in both directions.  Get sales and marketing to collaborate: Allow both teams to regularly meet and align their messages according to the needs of both teams. It helps increase the likelihood of a seamless customer experience.  Get and integrate data-driven insights: Take advantage of analytics that can crunch your data to give you the patterns, trends, and opportunities the system has spotted. And – bonus – these insights will empower you as the COO to make the most informed and effective decisions. Give your team time, resources, and realistic expectations: If something isn’t working, especially over the long term, leaning into it and applying pressure won’t help. You need to change it. Talk to the team about what they need. Study the most successful SaaS sales teams out there- what are they doing differently? What resources do they have? Automate it all: Automation takes care of all the other solutions in this list and wraps them up in a big bow for your sales team.  Automation will streamline your entire lead-to-billing process, so not only will you have a happy sales team that performs, but you’ll have a marketing team that’s up to scratch, a development team that is confident that customers understand the offering, and a revenue team that gets all contracts and terms accurately and in real-time.   That’s basically all your operations automated with the flick of a proverbial switch.   Automation relieves your sales team of these processes:   Agile and adjustable recommendations of the best pricing models AND products, no matter their complexity.    Crushing silos for good between teams by giving date and information in real-time. This cuts down on mistakes and speeds up the selling and invoicing process. No more revenue leakage!   An end to loss-making orders because you’ll know how much your customers are likely to spend and use.   Reliable upselling and cross-selling recommendations – not only the time and customer, but which products they’ll find useful. It also feeds this info to the right salesperson at the perfect time and pushes the contracts, sales, and terms to the revenue team.   All sales data is available in real time, and accessible by whichever teams need it.  All of these strategies will give your sales team the support they need to meet and exceed expected sales performance. Automation makes it easy and cost-effective.   This means you as a COO can regain control over all upselling and cross-selling efforts, surpass the targets, unlock the full potential of your product offering, and take all this good news with you to the boardroom.   We all know how important an excellent Customer Lifetime Value score can be to the success of your SaaS company. So upselling and cross-selling are essential for driving this growth.    Falling behind targets can impact your financial status and operations. It’s a level of stress that you and your sales team don’t need.   Fortunately, there are strong, proven strategies available to you.   By adopting a customer-centric approach, leveraging data-driven insights, fostering collaboration, and embracing automation, you can unlock the full potential of upselling and cross-selling.   Give yourself and your sales them the tools they need to bring in the revenue and growth that you want.   Say goodbye to manual revenue processes and boost your growth with Bluefort's cutting-edge automation solutions. Learn how our end-to-end system streamlines the end-to-end process. 

It’s no secret - IT Services is a tricky industry to negotiate. In fact, it’s pretty full-on. There’s tons of competition, customer demands change and increases constantly, and tech becomes obsolete in the blink of an eye. And at the center of all this is you - the Chief Revenue Officer. You’re the linchpin of financial success and you’ve got a lot of plates to spin. Handling diverse revenue streams. Ensuring an efficient billing process. Optimizing financial operations. It’s a lot of pressure. When things don’t work, the buck stops with you- you’re the one who has to walk into the boardroom and answer questions about why things are the way they are. And your teams will struggle, and their morale will plummet, negatively impacting performance in the future. We work with many CROs in IT Services, and we’ve found that one of the biggest challenges they have is invoice errors. To someone on the outside, these errors can look like small inaccuracies. But they cause HUGE problems. So let’s talk about where they come from, why they’re such a problem, and what can be done to solve it. Understanding Invoice Errors Invoice errors are really disruptive. So where do they come from? Mistakes: We’re all human, so we’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to input something wrong or overlook something. Especially if things are really busy. But the impact can be really serious - mistakes cause invoice errors including the wrong client IDs, incorrect dates, or misplaced decimal points. No oversight: This isn’t about blame. Most of the time when there’s no oversight it’s because everyone is so busy that some things will slip through the cracks. Without robust checks and balances, invoice errors are going to happen. And the larger your business, the bigger the problem, because chances are your invoicing involves multiple departments and personnel. Complex billing: Using billing systems that are not remotely streamlined is a common problem. But the more complex something is, the harder it can be to use with accuracy. Invoicing systems must be user-friendly, and they must prevent misunderstood functionalities, misused features, or lack of navigation. Otherwise, you’ll get errors. Ineffective communication: If teams and departments don’t keep accurate and real-time communication, there will be invoicing errors. For example, if sales offer new customers a discount, or existing customers a package deal for upgrades, but doesn’t tell the billing department every time, there will be inaccurate invoices. Again, it’s no one’s fault per se- most teams are so busy, that constant communication is virtually impossible. Scaling with no support: Of course great to scale! But when a company grows quickly, the operations and processes have to accommodate it. If they don’t, mistakes are going to be inevitable. How Invoice Errors Damage the CRO and the Business  These errors can cause a lot of damage. Some of it unfixable. And this damage extends across both your business and you. Do any of these sound familiar? Crediting and wasted efforts: Invoice errors force you to issue credits. You lose money, pure and simple. You also waste valuable resources because you have to take the time to find the error, inform your customer about it, and process the credit. Plummeting morale and productivity: No one likes to be screamed at on the phone. Or receive angry emails. Dealing with that day in and day out is going to be bad for morale. And it’s frustrating for you. All of you get stuck in a loop of trying harder, working longer hours, and yet seeing no change. That’s a terrible environment for you to work in. Damaged reputation: Making mistakes in your invoicing over and over will harm your reputation, which has a knock-on effect on your reputation personally. People will question your company’s reliability and competency. You lose business opportunities. You lose your standing in the industry. And you lose investors. Inefficient operations: When you and your teams are busy finding and solving invoice mistakes, you don’t have the time for a forward-thinking strategy, tasks, and campaigns. That puts your company at a disadvantage compared with your competition because IT Services is all about constant innovation. Customer churn: Customers simply won’t stick around if they have to deal with frustrating invoice mistakes. That means less money for you. Actionable Steps to Mitigate the Problem    When you’re a proactive CRO who wants to perform in the best way possible for the company, you want to solve problems as fast as possible.   So, how can a proactive CRO turn the tide against these issues? Here are some actionable steps you can take to stop the problem of invoice errors and get rid of the chaos that those errors cause:  Give your staff training: When staff are trained and updated on your billing, they are far less likely to make errors. Training sessions shouldn’t be a one-off, they should be regular events to keep your staff fresh, ready and aware of what to do to avoid mistakes.  Bring in the quality control your processes requires: Integrating a review system that works across all the tiers and teams involved in sales and billing will stop errors before they become a problem.  Give your teams realistic expectations: Teams get busy and overworked and that’s when errors can be their worst. Giving teams the resources they need, understanding that scaling puts extra pressure on everyone, and adjusting expectations to be more realistic will help cut down those errors.  Eliminate information silos between teams: When teams and departments get the information they need, they’ll be able to act with accuracy. Make sure that operating systems enable good communication so that misunderstandings are prevented and all relevant information is included in invoices.  Scale processes along with the customer base: When your company grows, your processes will have to grow so your teams can keep up. Ensuring your systems scale as much as possible will help prevent operational inefficiencies and invoice errors.  Bring in end-to-end automation: End-to-end automation is the ultimate solution to invoice errors. It really is! Automation cuts down on those errors because it streamlines the invoicing process.   It does this by combining all the previous steps - it enforces quality control by checking for errors, reduces the need for extensive training as the system handles most tasks, completely smashes silos and provides real-time information to flow between teams, ensures all data is incorporated correctly, and scales easily no matter how much or how fast.   And - bonus - the best platforms can make things easier for your sales and invoicing teams by designing the best pricing systems, funneling opportunities, using customer data to create offerings they want, and automatically raising invoices.   This means not only are those pesky common errors gone, but your teams are less stressed, have time to get involved in value-adding activities and boost your revenue.   That’s the kind of result you’ll be happy to take to the boardroom.   You Can End Invoice Problems For Good Invoicing errors don’t have to be a business inevitability. Neither does having crushed spirits thanks to all the damage control and bad morale! You as the CRO can tackle this issue head-on by knowing the causes, recognizing their impact, and taking proactive steps to prevent them. And you can have end-to-end automation take care of everything for you. This pain point can be transformed into a stepping stone towards more efficient and effective operations. Why wait any longer? Why not take the steps to eliminate those errors? You have nothing to gain except more revenue, happier customers, and better performance.

So, picture this.   You’re a COO in IT Services.   You’re got your hot cup of coffee, and you fire up the electronic device of your choice, hoping for a few moments of catching up before tackling your usual workload.   But then it becomes crystal clear that this isn’t going to be a calm day because you’re facing what is now a landslide of invoice errors and all the nightmare problems they bring. You get that sinking feeling like this is going to take weeks and who knows how much money to sort, if can be sorted at all.   Sound familiar?   The sad thing is you probably have had multiple times like this. Because the way things are set up makes it impossible to avoid these problems.   And when you’re in the middle of it, one thing’s for sure- you’re not going to have the time to enjoy that coffee while it’s hot.   That’s why we’re here to help. There are things you can do to get rid of these problems for good, save time and money, and get your time back.   The Extreme Pain of Invoice Errors and Wasted Resources   Invoice errors are no joke because they can do untold damage if they go unchecked. We’ve had conversations with IT Services COOs about this specific problem, and here’s what they said about the 5 of the most common pain points they face:   Wasted resources: Invoice errors create a lot of waste. Because exceptionally busy employees have to manually enter everything and then reconcile and rectify everything across siloed teams, that means wasted time, effort, and resources. This is not only expensive, but it steals resources that could be used for more strategic and revenue-generating initiatives and tasks.  Revenue leakage: This is a tough one, because your company might not even know how much revenue leakage you’ve got. But the invoicing process can underbill and even worse, miss customers altogether.   Cash flow disruptions: Invoice mistakes cause delays in payments as customers wait for everything to be corrected before they pay or receive a refund. Either way, this disrupts your cash flow. Which means you’re dealing with unreliable numbers and possible struggling to consistently meet your own financial obligations.  Damaged customer relationship and churn: It is possible to keep a good customer relationship after they receive an invoice that’s wrong? Possible- with some serious damage control like discounts and even more resources spent keeping them sweet. Incorrect invoices can erode trust and leave clients frustrated, saying bad things about you online, and leaving for a new service provider.    Compliance Risks: How can you stay compliant and be ready for audits at any given time when your invoice process has mistakes? You’re exposed to non-compliance, risking penalties, fines, legal consequences, and the loss of your reputation.   Sky-high costs: It’s expensive to put invoice errors right, from catching and correcting the mistakes, re-evaluating usage, rectifying things with the customer, and making sure accounts are back where they should be.  Imagine how much this costs every month if you have thousands or tens of thousands or millions of subscribers.   What could have been: Not a lot of people talk about this, but one of the problems is that all the time and effort spent on these invoice errors cost you in a deeper way too. Because time is zero-sum- there are only so many hours in a day, and you and your team are stopped from doing the kind of work that drives long-term success. Things like brainstorming new revenue streams, driving innovation and new products and services, and leading to new market territories become impossible.   All these problems make you blindfolded as a leader. You aren’t able to spot trends, build relationships with your customer base, or optimize the team workflows. You’ve got numbers you can’t rely on. You’re navigating a maze in the dark without a map. And that coffee gets cold all the time.   Fortunately, there’s hope. You as a COO don’t have time for guesswork- you need actionable solutions. So here are some strategies to help you conquer these invoice errors and reduce wasted efforts once and for all.  The Solutions You Need to Stop Invoice Errors   What are the steps you can take to stop these problems? Here are the top 5 we see that work best in the IT Service industry:  Streamline communication and collaboration between the teams: It's time to break down those silos between the sales and finance teams and foster a culture of seamless collaboration. When you invest in ways to centralize your communication and collaboration platform you’ll transform the ways your teams interact.   No more playing tag between workers solving (and avoiding) those invoice discrepancies. Open channels of communication, mean you get accelerated dispute resolution and minimize wasted efforts, all while building a stronger, more connected organization that does you proud.   Implement quality control: It’s time to end miscalculations and missing items once and for all. Establish rigorous quality control protocols with regular audits, cross-checking information and thorough staff training. And crucially, give your employees realistic expectations and the time they need to reach those expectations.    By implementing quality control measures, you'll spare yourself the embarrassment of sending out incorrect invoices, build strong relationships with your clients, and make your teams a lot happier.  Leverage your data analytics: There is so much insight locked away in your data, so it's time to unlock that power and use it to supercharge your invoicing processes. When you invest in advanced analytics tools, you’ll get the deep insights you need integrated into your invoicing workflows.   This data can help you analyze patterns, spot the bottlenecks in your operations, and identify and priotize the areas for improvement. That means more streamlined operations and optimized efficiency.   Foster Supplier and Customer Relationships: Customers need to be able to trust you and your invoices. Build strong relationships that increase the CLV with open and proactive communication with your customer base.   The more you nurture these connections, the stronger your brand. And then when any issues come up, it will be easier to resolve them both swiftly and amicably. That means more long-term growth for you.  Embrace Automation: The one thing that automation can bring you is…everything. Automation is the ultimate in efficiency, so when you automate your invoicing process you get:   An end to manual data entry nightmares with automated data entry and calculations that avoid revenue leakage, and the resource-sapping steps throughout   Smashed silos and clear communication between your sales, revenue, and service teams that requires a lot less time from them.  A self-running invoicing process that means customers get notifications, the correct invoices, and easy of payment on the terms they want   Reliable revenue numbers that are updated in real time so that you always know where you are   A system that has compliance and audit-readiness built in  A strengthened reputation for accuracy and reliability that will build your brand   Saved money and resources  You really can revolutionize your invoicing game. And automation can drive that change for you.   Success as a COO Can Be Yours   With streamlined communication, quality control measures, data analytics, strong relationships, and the automation that can make it all possible, you’ll finally have the tools to not just tackle any invoicing challenges that come your way, but to avoid them altogether.  You deserve to have a streamlined invoicing process.   You deserve to say goodbye to wasted hours and frustrating mistakes.   You and your teams deserve to be able to work on revenue-building activities that will ensure your brand’s long-term success.   You deserve a hot cup of coffee that you have the time to finish.    Say goodbye to manual revenue processes and boost your growth with Bluefort's cutting-edge automation solutions. Learn how our end-to-end system streamlines the end-to-end process. 

You’re a SaaS CEO, so you understand that the success of your business rides on the sales team.   But they have a lot of challenges thrown at them. And one of the worst is complex subscription pricing. In fact, it’s so bad it can lead to high turnover which makes your life a lot harder. Not only does this impact your teams and you, but it impacts your bottom line.   Fortunately, there’s one thing that can solve this problem for you – something that will not only take care of pricing complexity forever, but keep your sales team engage and excited. It is possible to create a more productive and motivated team that drives your company’s success and revenue.   What SaaS Pricing Complexity Looks Like   We understand how difficult subscription pricing can be. We’re a SaaS subscription company that works with SaaS subscription companies.   There’s a lot of pressure on you as a CEO to get it right, but often you as a CEO haven’t been given the tools you need to tackle pricing complexity.   And that means the sales team has to spend a lot more time negotiating the complexity with your current and would-be customers. That includes:  Multiple Pricing Tiers: Your pricing structure can offer different levels of service, usage, and features, each with their own price points that can change as well.   Add-ons: New products and features mean new add-ons that will complicate things further. It makes the pricing more difficult, but it also throws a monkey-wrench into the monitoring and needs of your customers.   Customizations: It’s a fact that customers love offerings that are tailored specifically for them. But it’s extremely time-consuming to figure out what they need and to accurately keep track of it.   Hidden Fees: If pricing structure depends on usage, chances are at some point that there will be surprise charges that some customers might not be happy about (even though the charges are fair!).   Discounts: Discounts bring their own problems for sales teams, but they also increase customer expectations and throw off the revenue teams.   Inconsistency: With different people being offered different things all the time, it’s hard to keep track of everyone. Mistakes are made and customers get frustrated.   When your pricing strategy has these elements, it’s pretty much impossible for your sales team to keep up. They’ll stumble through pricing negotiations. They’ll have to spend a lot more time creating proposals. They’ll wince when quoting what might be incorrect pricing.  In order words, their productivity is gone, and customer satisfaction and deal closure at both at risk. How can your team possibly thrive and succeed in bringing in revenue while in that environment?   Why Pricing Complexity Makes Life Hard for Sales Staff   The quick answer is that they can’t. Because they’re human, and there are only so many hours in a day.   When your sales team are stuck in this cycle, they face a lot of impacts:   It’s harder to sell: Complex pricing means more time is needed for sales staff to understand and explain the value proposition. When they struggle to give easy-to-understand pricing to customers, customers walk. That’s a lot of missed sales opportunities.  Time wasted on negotiations: When sales pricing is hard to understand, more time is needed to prepare for negotiations because sales teams have to be ready for multiple scenarios, juggling multiple pricing options, discounts, customizations, and add-ons.  More mistakes: The more complex the pricing, the greater the chances of mistakes throughout the entire sales cycle. And that doesn’t just impact your team and customers, but also your reputation.   Less flexibility: There’s a lot less flexibility to adapt, to specific customer needs that crop up at any given time. Sales teams simply don’t have the time and resources to give the best offerings to their customers – so why would customers remotely enjoy their interactions with your team?   No morale and plummeting job satisfaction: Imagine what it’s like dealing with these problems over and over with no chance of escape. It’s frustrating and overwhelming. The team can feel (quite reasonably!) that they’re set up for failure.   When you get to the point that it’s impossible to do your job, it gets harder to stay at your job.   Why the Sales Reps Leave   Sales staff with these challenges get frustrated. So they work harder and longer to try to meet the sales targets and ern commission. This takes a toll on their confidence. They can suffer from burnout, depression, and insomnia.   Then they notice that some of your competitors offer simpler pricing models and sales support that enables the sales team to do their jobs right, they’ll eventually go.   What This Costs You   This costs you both the replacement of the sales rep, the missed revenue from their absence, the recruitment and replacement process, any churn from neglected and the ripple effect on your teams.   What is the solution?  The solution to both your pricing complexity and sales turnover problems lies in a proverbial flick of the switch.   Automation.   You’re a SaaS company. You understand what cutting-edge solutions do for your customers. So why not give the same solution to yourself?   Here's what automation does for you and your team:  Simple pricing processes: Automating pricing calculations and configurations eliminates manual errors and ensures accurate quotes. Sales staff can rely on standardized processes, reducing confusion and saving time.  Manual admin processes are gone: Salespeople waste up to a third of their day on repetitive processes (and that’s not counting the damage control from mistakes found in manual processing!), so once those are cleared out of the way, they’re free to do what they’re supposed to do- SELL.  Sales get 24-7 access to pricing information: Things change fast in the SaaS world. Your company’s pricing should be agile and responsive to the customer’s needs. AND this information should flow between teams including Product, Revenue and Customer Care. With automation, your sales team will get real-time data whenever they need it for on-the-spot quotes.   Everything is customized and flexible: Customers demand personalized service. Automation gives them offerings that are driven by their data, behavior, and consumption. No need for complex calculations. Sales opportunities are spotted (for both new and existing customers), offerings tailored, and the system even identifies the best time for the offering and which sales rep should get it.   Easy end-to-end sales processes: Automatic pricing and sales processes make everything so much easier. Imagine a sales team that actually has the time to build long-lasting relationships with customers!   Better productivity and job satisfaction: By eliminating both the tedious day-to-day tasks and the nightmare of complex pricing calculations, there’s a lot more job satisfaction and less stress. This also gives you an advantage over your competitors and helps you attract the best talent.   Bonuses:  No delay in onboarding due to mistakes, errors and silos with sales and revenue teams  Lower customer churn rate due to better offerings when wanted   Better product offerings because of AI-driven customer data   Faster sales cycle because the end-to-end process is automated   Automation is an investment that costs a lot less than you think and brings in a lot more than you can imagine.   We all want to be appreciated. And when sales reps know they are supported, have the end-to-end automated for them, and can devote their time to high-value selling and developing customer relationships, they’re happier.   Why would they leave?   The solution is yours if you want it  The harder things are for your sales team, the harder things will be for your customers and for you.   This is especially true with complex pricing strategies.    But an automation solution helps you as a SaaS CEO can solve the problem of pricing complexity and then get rid of the negative environment it creates for your sales team.   You get a simple pricing strategy that can handle any shift or turn. And in return, you get happier sales teams and customers. More productivity. More revenue. And retention of your talent.   Why not act now? The sooner you make the switch, the sooner all the good stuff comes to you.  Recurring revenue businesses leak up to 5% in their billing processes. -Forbes Say goodbye to manual sales processes and boost your growth with Bluefort's cutting-edge automation solutions. Learn how our end-to-end system streamlines the end-to-end process. 

The thing about sales is that you need a potential customer.  But one of the most common problems in SaaS sales is that the sales team has no clue who to reach out to. Especially with add-ons.  So where does this come from? How does it affect your bottom line? And most importantly, how can this be reversed?  Why the SaaS Sales Team Doesn't Know Who to Reach Out To  There are multiple reasons why this happens. Do any of these sound familiar to you?  The complexity of SaaS offerings: SaaS products and pricing are renowned for complexity. Not only does the brand bring in new features and add-ons all the time, but packages can vary depending on tiers and individual customer offering.  It can be virtually impossible for a sales team to figure out the right fit for each customer. And that’s not just because it’s hard to keep track of which offerings go with what; it’s also because salespeople don’t have the time to accurately keep track of everyone. The variety of options can overwhelm even the most experienced reps.  Lack of customer insights: When a team doesn’t have the nights that come from data and numbering-crunching, it’s a difficult game. They might struggle to both understand the fluctuating needs of each customer and which add-on would best add value to their lives.   When they are unclear about their customers wants and when they need them offered, the team has to guess.  Silos between teams: There are usually substantial silos between the finance, product, customer success, and sales teams can spell disaster for everyone involved as well as the company.  Sales need vital information including what types of products are available, which products complement each other (and don’t work together), how the company’s current relationship with the customer is going, information about the customer’s usage and what they might need, when is the best time to pitch an add-on, etc.    Competition: SaaS is arguably the most competitive industry there is. Everything is in constant flux. New products get released all the time. Companies work to price others out of the market.   This means that customer expectations are at their highest and retention rates are for many people at their lowest. This puts a lot of pressure on a sales team to not “mess things up” by making the retention problem worse than it is.   The Consequences of No Clues  When sales teams don’t have the tools they need to know which people to approach about add-ons, it can have a serious knock-on impact on everyone and everything.   Here’s where we see the impacts the most:   Declining revenue potential: Not knowing when to sell add-ons means missed opportunities which is less money for your bottom line. This hinders your growth and profitability.  Costly mistakes: Guesswork is expensive. Not only does your sales team have to spend time and resources guessing who will need what and when, but when they guess wrong, they spend more time and resources (as well as costly discounts) making things right.   Strained customer relationships: When add-on offerings aren’t tailored for customers, it’s a turnoff. When add-on offerings are unsuitable or wrong, it’s a disaster. It’s too easy for customers to pick up and leave for another company that will give them what they want. After all, what have they got to lose?   Deteriorating morale and motivation: When sales reps continually struggle without the tools they need to meet high-pressure targets with high stakes, their confidence and enthusiasm will wane. And it has a ripple effect, with other teams frustrated too.  Reduced cross-selling effectiveness: When the team doesn’t have the understanding of add-on potential, cross-selling initiatives become essentially useless. That’s more revenue down the pipes.  Individually, these impacts are destructive, but together, they can really set a company and its COO back.   The great news is that you can change everything.   Actions You Can Take as the COO  There are a few very effective strategies for equipping your sales team with the knowledge they need to sell add-ons and build your revenue.    Foster collaboration and knowledge sharing Break down those silos by encouraging regular communication and collaboration between sales, product management, and customer success teams. If they have knowledge-sharing sessions and cross-fertilise each other’s brainstorming meetings, they will be able to exchange information and insights, customer feedback, and strategies.   Invest in excellent customer data analysis It’s only by leveraging customer data analytics tools that you can gain deep insights into usage patterns, preferences, and pain points. The data’s already there, so why not turn it into more money? Equip sales teams with this valuable information to better understand customer needs and recommend relevant add-ons.  Implement personalized training programs If you train the sales team on products, features, benefits, and what works best with what, it will help them to effectively communicate the value proposition to customers.  Develop an add-on recommendation framework Creating a clear structured workflow for sales that all the reps can work with will help guide them through the process, and keep it uniform so that different customers aren’t getting an inconsistent quality experience.  Use automation - it’s there ready and waiting to do everything The beauty of automation is that not only does it save time, revenue, and other resources, but it actually generates revenue opportunities that can’t be realized with manual processes.  Here’s what the right end-to-end sales automation process will give you:   Data analysis that gives insights on customer behavior, usage data, and triggers to identify optimal moments for add-on offers.  Integrated product knowledge that tells sales what products and features work best (and worst!) with each customer’s needs Absolute visibility between financial and sales and customer service teams so that all people have access to the information they need at any given time  Reliable numbers that you can feel confident in when you enter the Board Meeting  Add-on offerings that are exactly what customers are looking for at the right time Happier sales teams that are motivated and have excellent leads they know are strong enough to get a sale More time to do all the value-building work that you and your teams want to do And two bonuses for excellent SaaS sales automation platforms:   Real-time insights that spot the best add-on opportunities and channel them to the right that salesperson Automatically sending add-on sales back into finance for invoicing, billing, and reconciliation too.  The easiest way to crack the add-on dilemma is letting automation do all these strategies for you.   It’s the combination of cutting-edge tech with human personality that will enable your sales team to succeed. And that’s what you need as a COO.   It Can All Be Yours   The point is this - SaaS companies can’t afford to not invest in the things that will make it easier for the sales teams to do their jobs.   And this is particularly important with add-ons because they help establish a better CLV, which is the jackpot!   As a COO, you can create an environment where sales reps have the knowledge, tools, and support they need to confidently offer add-ons to customers.   You can drive revenue growth, enhance customer relationships and boost your team morale and motivation all in one.  Curious to find out more?   Say goodbye to manual sales processes and boost your growth with Bluefort's cutting-edge automation solutions. Learn how our end-to-end system streamlines the end-to-end process.