Editorial Team

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The Editorial Team at SubscriptionFlow is a collaborative group of writers, strategists, and subject matter experts drawn from across our marketing, product, engineering, and customer success teams. With firsthand experience building and scaling subscription-based platforms, our contributors bring deep knowledge of recurring billing, membership management, revenue operations, and customer retention. Every piece of content we publish is designed to inform, inspire, and empower subscription businesses—from SaaS startups and digital publishers to eLearning platforms and membership communities. Backed by real industry insights and shaped by our work with businesses around the globe, our editorial content reflects our mission: helping modern organizations unlock growth through smarter subscription management.
For small- to medium-sized subscription businesses, recurring billing management is the most difficult part. Even, the most tedious and orchestrated processes of sending out the invoices and offering the online payment processing convenience cannot ensure on-time payments. Payment delays mean financial constrains in managing other standard business operations such as production, employee management, sales, marketing, research, order fulfillment, or others. With the growing competition in the market, subscription businesses of any size cannot rely on manual billing processing. To hold systematic control over recurring revenue management growth, accurate revenue recognition is inevitable. And, the revenue recognition can only be achieved when the recurring revenue stream can systematically flow with automatic billing automation. Before diving into the different aspects of automated customer billing, let’s see what we meant by the terms, “Subscription Billing” and “Automation”. Subscription Billing, also known as recurring billing, is the process of charging a customer, repetitively, for a set period after every defined interval for using the subscription product or services. And, automation is the digitalization of several functions to be operated without assistance or human guidance. Using machine language, it is the use of technology to simplify the complex processes of business by automating the repetitive tasks in a system. Automation with artificial intelligence technology enables businesses to understand natural languages, process unstructured data to form patterns, and based on structured data, identifies different commands, and then performs triggered-based actions. The Science of Automated Sales and Billing In any business, sales are directly related to the billing, and billing is related to the payments, and payments contribute towards revenue. However, the foundation of the subscription business is the recurrence of the needs of the customer. This consistency and recurrence creates the same pattern in ordering, invoicing, billing, payment processing, revenue monitoring, and reporting. It, eventually, results in revenue recognition. So, the idea behind the introduction of the automation in subscription management is to automate the billing of the recurring sales of the products or services that would generate stable and predictable recurring revenue without any delay in the payment charging and payment processing to the merchant’s account. What is Automated Billing System? To auto-manage the billing on a recurring basis, Subscription Businesses can take the assistance of the automated billing system. In other words, it is also called a subscription management system, subscription system, subscription billing management system, or recurring billing system. The automated billing system is, basically, a suite of the stacks or applications that are integrated together to build a coordinated system or platform that can manage the subscription billing. Understanding the Relations between Subscription Management, Recurring Billing and Automation Systems Subscription software in today’s market is no longer serving the recurring billing management only. They are full-fledged SaaS platforms, now, that can also auto-manage contacts, subscribers’ data, inventory, supply chain, quotes, orders, invoicing, payment processing, fulfillment, sales deals management, marketing campaigns, service centers, and all the other business operations in one place. So, the question is how do they do it? The automated recurring billing or subscription management software with their open-source APIs makes it possible to integrate different applications and in real-time, flow the information and sync the data across the apps. This cross-platform data synchronization allows the platform to establish trigger-based automated actions within the system, or, with the permission of the other third-party application, across the stacks. This is how in a comprehensive subscription management system, billing and automation go hands-in-hands. It works as automated recurring billing, payments, and revenue operations management system. Automated Billing System Advantages in Subscription Management Manual billing management is the phenomenon of the bygone era. Due to the dozens of automated billing conveniences and assistance, the automated subscription management platforms have already replaced the traditional billing management practices. From startups to SMBs to enterprises, businesses all over are devising their strategies to take advantage of the innovation of automation and artificial intelligence assistance. SubscriptionFlow is the futuristic, flexible, and faster recurring billing, payment, and revenue management system that accelerates the growth of your subscription business and recurring revenue by providing the personalized subscription management solution as per the size, niche, and resources of the subscription business. Some of the main benefits of changing to the automated system of SubscriptionFlow from the manual billing processing are; • Easy, Instant, and automated invoicing—the invoice automation benefits such as accuracy, transparency, and on-time calculations and charging trigger for the payment modules. This ensures the timely and strictly regulated subscription billing cycle without annoying the customers with refunds and re-calculations due to invoice errors. • Automatic mid of the subscription billing cycle calculations and adjustments such as subscription plan upgrades, downgrades, pause, reactivation, or cancelation. It is called prorated subscription billing. • Automated sending out the invoices, payment status notification, and due-payments reminders to the subscriber’s email or Phone • Automated Order placement, order receiving, and order processing • Automated Scheduled Payment Charging on Subscribers credit card • Automated deductions and payment processing to the merchant’s account • In case of payment failures due to credit card expiry, bank system’s technical glitches, or any error, scheduled auto-retries for the payment for ensured collection and reduced involuntary churn. It is called automated dunning management. • Multiple integrations with or within the standard business applications such as CRM and ERP • Automated streamlining of the production, procurement, billing, fulfillment, sales, marketing, development, and support operations through integrations • Automated sync of data across the integrations and operations in real-time • Automated information update in client portal from the self-service customer portal • Automated and AI-fueled online payments and customer risks monitoring, identification, reporting, as well as mitigation • Automated and optimal support for all pricing and billing models—from flat-rate subscription billing to usage- or consumption-based to hybrid billing The web-based SubscriptionFlow as a SaaS billing software automates the recurring billing cycle and payment processing. It is a solution to industrialize operations and increase productivity without focusing on regular financial and accounting operations. With SubscriptionFlow automated platform, you can help your subscription business to auto-manage the hassle-free recurring billing operations with ease, simplicity, and convenience without being tech-astute or configuring the huge technical stacks.
Subscription Billing
Editorial Team

This is How Subscription Billing Automation is a Game Changer for Subscription Businesses

For small- to medium-sized subscription businesses, recurring billing management is the most difficult part. Even, the most tedious and orchestrated processes of sending out the invoices and offering the online payment processing convenience cannot ensure on-time payments. Payment delays mean financial constrains in managing other standard business operations such as

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August 26, 2020 No Comments
Easy to use subscription management system
Subscription Management
Editorial Team

Choosing an Easy-to-Use Subscription Management Platform—25 key Features SubscriptionFlow Offers for Seamless Recurring Billing Management

Subscription businesses are growing, exponentially. The significance of recurring revenue across the industries, encourage businesses to step up for the subscription-based customer engagement management. Today, in the subscription eco-system, businesses of all sizes are offering subscription products or services to their customers catering to the consistency and recurrence of their

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August 24, 2020 No Comments
upgrade or downgrade customer subscriptions
Subscription
Editorial Team

Efficient & Instant Management of Upgrades & Downgrades Helps Subscription Businesses to Retain Customers, Learn How

Subscription businesses have to come up with all the offers, convenience, and utilities that can hook a customer to their subscription product or services. Because the subscription business is based on consistency and recurrence, it is extremely important to facilitate a customer as per their current situation and present need.

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August 19, 2020 No Comments
SaaS Business Model pros and cons
Subscription
Editorial Team

SaaS Business Model – Facts, Stages and Pros & Cons to Know About

With each passing day, businesses are looking forward to adopting innovative solutions in their operational infrastructure. The systems are automated which helps businesses reduce friction in daily operations and increase efficiency. Young startups are developing a SaaS business model and struggling hard to accomplish their goals by considering every important

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August 17, 2020 No Comments
Subscription Box Business 103
Subscription
Editorial Team

Subscription Box Business 103-Market your Subscription Box, Attract the Sales And Grow the Subscriber Base

In almost all the industries operating online or offline, subscription box services are becoming crucially important. In the past few years, subscription services and varying subscription billing strategies have penetrated into the digital space to automate the subscription processes of various businesses which include but are not limited to eCommerce,

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August 12, 2020 No Comments
How to Manage eCommerce Subscriptions with SubscriptionFlow
Subscription Management
Editorial Team

How to Manage eCommerce Subscriptions with SubscriptionFlow

The digital space is revolutionizing at a rapid pace. The industrial landscape is adopting innovative solutions to compete with businesses in this technological world.  Among those strategies, subscription management is grooving into every online business that provides unique services and products to customers. By taking into account a range of

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August 10, 2020 No Comments
Top SaaS Billing Models for SaaS Businesses
Subscription Billing
Editorial Team

A Definitive Guide: Top SaaS Billing Models for SaaS Businesses

One of the numerous challenges for implementing billing models in SaaS or Software as a Service product is to maintain a balance between revenue and value. It is crucial for a business entity to compensate their customers such that the strategy for their SaaS billing models aligns well according to

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August 7, 2020 No Comments
AI-Enabled SaaS for Subscription Management
Subscription Management
Editorial Team

AI-Enabled SaaS for Subscription Management—05 Key Areas Where Using Artificial Intelligence Revolutionized the Data-Driven Services

With the advent of artificial intelligence, the world has seen a revolution in the landscape of sales. AI reinvented the sales efforts, sales strategies, sales force, and requirements of the skills for sales professionals. Integrating intelligent tools powered by Artificial Intelligence is making the sales goals and targets more achievable

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August 5, 2020 No Comments
Selecting a Subscription Service
Subscription
Editorial Team

07 Features to Look Out For When Selecting a Subscription Billing Service For Your Subscription Business

The subscription-based business draws more and more attention and prospects of the businesses and individuals due to its key aspects like growth opportunities, stability, market predictability, recurring revenue, customer retention, data-driven, and focused audience and market identification, sales and marketing streamlining, etc. From online small to medium-sized businesses to the

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July 30, 2020 No Comments
Optimize ecommerce subscriptions
Subscription Billing
Editorial Team

eCommerce Subscriptions Are Here to Stay—Learn to Optimize Subscription eCommerce Billing & Management to Fuel Stability & Growth in Business

After the huge success of the subscription models of the media, digital marketing, gaming, streaming services, and OTT ventures, more online businesses leaped into the arena of the subscription e-Commerce. And, within few years, we have witnessed that businesses from across the industries—online stores, membership services, hospitality, automobiles, education, health,

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July 27, 2020 No Comments
Business Process Automation
Recurring Billing
Editorial Team

Business Process Automation—The Revolutionary Recurring Billing and Subscription Management Technology for Businesses of All Sizes

Businesses everywhere want to grow with a relentless speed; so do their competitors. All are looking for ways to improve their efficiency, productivity, and growth every other day. The businesses are implementing more and more systems and technology infrastructure so that the costs can be reduced, the output can be

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July 24, 2020 No Comments