However much billing systems have moved away from their historic complexity and inflexibility, the craving for more features and simplicity refuses to die.
Resellers have taken advantage of an evolution in billing systems to wrest back control over how they bill customers. Once dismissed as a bugbear of administrative burden and necessity, billing solutions now offer resellers a cost-effective option to help drive their business forward. To achieve this happy state the billing market needs to be fast moving, says Howard Chaplin, Managing Director, Shaftesbury. Its long-serving billing platform, ebillz, started life in 1995 as an inbound services billing platform and has evolved to bring together the billing of recurring charges such as WLR, ADSL broadband, mobile calls and data to VoIP, non geographic numbers and phone system maintenance contracts, as well as new technologies such as SIP and WiMAX to offer a single unified invoice.
"By having our in-house research and development team constantly working on new features and functionality, we keep pace with new file formats from suppliers as well as developing features that we believe would give our customers a competitive advantage," stated Chaplin. "The convergence between telephony and IT will only get stronger and the billing system would continue to play a key role in managing the diverse number of services customers would require. Integration into third party systems is key, hence our continuous development into linking ebillz into WLR3, accounting applications and sales tools such as Act! and Salesforce."
Flexibility
Another important aspect for resellers to consider is their own resource pool and the flexibility their billing company can provide in times of additional demands such as business continuity when key staff leave, or when additional out of hour support is required. "We allow flexibility to move from a rental model to a full bureau where we can do the billing on the reseller's behalf," added Chaplin. "This could be for a short interval when internal billing staff have gone on leave or sick or made redundant, or a long-term solution when outsourcing the billing is the cheapest solution. We are also able to offer out of hours support and can provide full 24/7 support if required for those clients who need this protection in order to win a key customer account."
In terms of major development goals a big area of development for ebillz includes extending the reporting tools to build on the existing Crystal Reports and dynamic Power Reports. "Another key focus for us is the automation of the bill run process from start to finish," noted Chaplin. "This would help eliminate human errors in the loading and rating stages with reports being automatically emailed to the billing manager once CDRs have been loaded and rated. This should dramatically decrease the time it takes to get the bill run completed, as well as improve the audit and QA process. Integration will play a key role in the evolution of ebillz with continuous development work taking place to link ebillz into third party applications such as WLR3, to provide synergy as well as to eliminate data duplication and double entry."
In today's turbulent market it is essential that bad debt and customer churn are minimised. It is therefore essential that the billing department is made aware of payments as well as customers who are overdue with their payments. Platforms such as ebillz have a built in credit control system that does email and letter chasing, applies credit limits to customer accounts and can report on credit exposures as well as run aged debt reports.
Integration
"Other essential tools that we believe all resellers should expect as standard are integration into their third party applications such as Sage so as to give a full circle solution and avoid duplication and double entry of data, as well as links into suppliers' portals for provisioning and WLR3," Chaplin observed. "If opting for a managed bureau service then it is essential that the billing company comes with the re-assurance of holding BSI accreditation for providing billing services."
The imperative to provide billing platforms that are reseller friendly and bristle with functionality has been high on the agenda of developers at Daisy Wholesale (recently rebranded from Tempest Technology), who have worked hard on the user interface of its Clarity software application. "Using the latest programming techniques we have made it possible for users to customise the way the software looks and feels, making it as relevant as possible for each individual's job role," stated Tim Sayer, Managed Services Director.
"For example, a user can restrict access to specific areas of the software using role based permissions, and use the drag and drop interface to customise each screen. Another important innovation is the Workspace area within Clarity that allows multiple screens to be opened simultaneously. This means that users can view and edit multiple accounts at the same time and lay tariffs side by side for easy comparison."
While most billing platforms are designed for ease of use, there are two areas that sometimes catch billing vendors out, claims Sayer - service charge billing and dial string maintenance. "You absolutely have to get these right. We have been involved in WLR2/3 provisioning and have experience of how line rental and other fixed/recurring type charges should be billed. This is important, as we are seeing a large increase in the volume and types of services that resellers are consuming."
It is also vital that billing systems allow resellers to have control over how these services are billed, whether this be billing in advance, pro-rating part month charges, charge frequency (annual, monthly quarterly for example) as well as providing a simple method of adding new products to the system. "Dial string maintenance is something that most billing systems support but more often than not it is left to the reseller to decide how a new or changed dial string should be mapped," said Sayer. "This leads to all sorts of problems, most notably calls being classified incorrectly which can result in reduced or negative margins being made to certain destinations."
The billing function is the one thing that a reseller must do to ensure cash is collected in a timely manner. "Speed of processing and bill production is important but a billing system is more than that," said Sayer. "The management information that the billing system provides is also critical as it will identify where margins are being made and what aspects of the billing information can be altered to maximise this. The billing system will also give the reseller a holistic view of their accounts, where they are, what products customers take (and which ones they don't) allowing the reseller to target customers with specific campaigns."
Development
Flexibility and a commitment to a rolling development programme are key to the future of billing systems, says Sayer. "Our rolling development programme means that we are constantly innovating and finding ways to enhance the software and service we provide," added Sayer. "We have a talented team of developers, but we also have a great customer base who we can rely on for honest feedback and constructive advice on what they would like to see. It's this genuine engagement with customers that a reseller should look for when choosing a billing vendor. Our industry is always changing and software vendors like ourselves need to keep pace with change."
Although Sayer won't give away any secrets on the next stage of development in the evolution of Daisy's billing system, he did point to some ‘interesting developments' in the pipeline. "Our resellers tell us that they want to empower their customers to take control of their own estate and to give them the tools to easily identify fraud and to control costs," he said. "We see an online capability as key to this and are investing heavily in a suite of bill presentment and customer self-service tools."
Enhanced interface
As well as the online suite that is already under development, Daisy Wholesale is enhancing the way that the billing system feeds management information to resellers. "We are drawing on the work that we have already done to enhance the user interface and ensure that unexpected changes in volume, value and margin are immediately reported in user friendly ways and provide the tools that allow the raw data to be queried and analysed in a simple non techie way," he noted. "For Daisy Wholesale, the service that we provide is as important as the software that our customers use, and we are always refining processes and developing the knowledge and skills of our team."
Another example of a billing product that has evolved according to the demands of resellers is Union Street's aBILLity platform, which boasts around 280 clients. "aBILLity is the product of masses of feedback over the years," said Tony Cook, Managing Director, Union Street. "The market is forever changing with new products and innovation and different ways of doing things, and our development team are constantly busy ensuring we adapt to this change."
A billing system should be easy to use and enable the CP to complete their billing with minimal hassle. It should have some good revenue assurance features to allow them to easily understand their margins and it should be flexible enough to allow them to offer price propositions and bundles. "A good billing platform can save time and money by automating certain processes such as provisioning and integration with an accounts packages," added Cook. "A billing platform can give a CP a competitive edge by providing unique sales propositions."
Looking ahead
The future needs that resellers must consider when opting for a billing solution, according to Cook, include ease of use, scaleability, a solid track record and whether the platform can provide integrated provisioning (WLR3). He also noted: "We are putting a lot of effort into creating APIs so that the aBILLity billing platform can be easily integrated with other software packages. For example, we have just launched a close integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This will benefit CPs by providing an end-to-end joined up CRM solution with a single point of data entry."
With bespoke solutions high on the billing wish list of many resellers, PRD Technologies offers free customisation to its QuickStart Billing customers. "There's no up-front fees, no set-up or hidden fees for data migration, testing etc. And even when the system goes live we charge industry entry-level prices for effectively carrier-grade services using carrier-grade technology," noted Simon Adams, Managing Director, PRD Technologies. "Everything is made simple because our underlying technology is based on 4GL, written in pseudo English making QuickStart billing customisable and flexible."
Adams doesn't go as far as to say that QuickStart Billing is ‘recession-proof', but he does believe that there is ‘something interesting' in PRD's model. "QuickStart Billing is the same system, albeit simplified, as the systems used by various telecom operators processing 100 million-plus CDRs per day," he said. "It also means our software development and support is proven at every level, with ease of use hiding complex technology."
Freedom of choice
The gospel according to Adams is that resellers must have freedom of choice. "We must provide them with what they want, and not push them into accepting solutions based on what's available on hyped reputations," he stated. "Freedom of choice should also include never locking customers into minimum contracts. It's about respecting customers' choices."
Adams is confident that QuickStart Billing already caters for the needs of a developing market and evolving reseller base. "We don't expect customers to have to ask for a more complex version of essentially the same software as they grow," he said. "QuickStart Billing for the entry-level user has all features as standard, so every functionality is there if they need it. It's the same software regardless of who uses it and we don't expect resellers to pay a premium. It's not about squeezing every penny from any features, or charging a little extra here-and-there for web-portals, for extra seats, for different user excess levels etc. Every functionality is standard for customers to use if they want it."
The Nine Club billing platform is another industry workhorse that has undergone a structural redesign that not only enables total flexibility to bill all products, it also integrates provisioning and order management tools that enable resellers to run their service business from a single portal. "The crucial decision to take the billing platform to a hosted environment has benefited resellers in a number of ways, such as eliminating expensive on site upgrade and maintenance work, facilitating flexible and secure working from any PC at any location, and helping minimise local IT risks and budgets," according to Barnes Clutterbuck, Operations Director at Nine Club.
Billing platforms are morphing into all-in one-solutions, and the next step for most billing platforms is taking the integration that extra bit further to being a full customer support and order management tool. Clutterbuck asks: "Why manage a separate CPS, IDA, WLR, broadband, mobile portal when you can have it all in one place? Why should a reseller's retention mechanisms sit outside of the billing systems? Surely the most powerful set of information about that customer sits in the billing platform? The billing platform must provide more than bills, it must provide a complete set of customer management tools, otherwise it is just one more disparate tool strapped to the side of a business."
Architectural criteria
Resellers who are looking to switch billing platforms must consider key architectural criteria when selecting a solution, such as whether the platform is capable of growing with the business, its capacity to move into a cloud environment, and once there can it be maintained easily, points out Clutterbuck. He also pinpointed functional aspects to consider, such as an ability to move quickly with market demands in terms of products and services, and commercial imperatives such as an ability to transition customers to a new platform if a reseller company sells its base.
"It is imperative that all of these issues are considered thoroughly prior to switching to a new billing solution," said Clutterbuck. "Nine Club has witnessed the classic ‘new broom' syndrome where new billing platforms are chosen and implemented without sufficient operational consideration. Billing platforms are incredibly sensitive and any change potentially jeopardises the business. If resellers do change they should ensure that the new partner is the right partner and can service their future needs."