Imagine being a communications company juggling more than 1 billion email, text and voice conversations every month and billing accurately for all of those conversations while juggling varied payment plans, accounting for carrier surcharges, and estimating taxes — all while trying to grow your business. Imagine your company’s executives spending one to two weeks each month reconciling invoices and balancing the proverbial checkbook. Imagine revenue leakage to the tune of $100,000 from just one customer before the debt was detected.

These were the billing issues Ytel was struggling with as the company tried to scale on the foundation of its homegrown, legacy billing system. A communication platform designed to help businesses enhance the customer experience through integrated SMS and voice capabilities, Ytel is on the cutting edge of communications trends, transforming the way its clients do business. But their billing platform was holding the company back from achieving the growth levels it aspired to.

In order to close the revenue gaps from the deficiencies the business was seeing in its order-to-cash process, the CFO began searching for a flexible billing platform that could automate their complex models and provide the scalability Ytel needed. The CFO was looking for an intelligent billing system that could break down usage into accurate charges and invoices, integrate with other back-office platforms, and scale right along with the business. On top of these foundational needs, Ytel was looking to add prepaid billing allotments and discounts to its models, account for taxes, and migrate customers to a self-service platform to reduce support overhead.

The team at Gotransverse was happy to help, and our platform offered most of Ytel’s required features right out of the box:

• Fully automated billing and revenue recognition
• Accurate calculation of charges per communication sent
• Accommodations for volume discounts and mixed-service billing
• Inclusion of estimated tax as part of the service estimate
• Automated dunning and collections at all transaction volumes
• Integration with the NetSuite ERP platform
• Support for their payment gateway, facilitating an easy transition in a PCI-compliant manner

After implementing the Gotransverse platform, Ytel saw unprecedented accuracy — and unprecedented ease — in its billing system. Executives were no longer spending hours and days and weeks reconciling invoices; instead, the entire system was managed by two billing administrators. Revenue leakage stopped when replenishment orders and payments were fully automated, every client had an open line of communication with the accounting department and Ytel had the opportunity to establish new revenue models. Using a feature that’s unique to the Gotransverse platform, they could now accurately track and charge prepaid usage accounts and alert customers when it was time to “top up.”

“Adopting Gotransverse not only makes our current workflow more efficient and scalable, it also allows us to develop new revenue models that are more attractive to our customers. No business should be limited by its back-office processes, and with Gotransverse we can adapt our billing system to the way we want to do business.” - Nick Newsom, CEO of Ytel

Learn more about Gotransverse’s work with Ytel — and the results we helped them achieve — by reading the Ytel case study.

In Outgrowing its Legacy Billing Platform, Ytel Isn’t Alone

For businesses planning to scale today, flexibility and speed are two critical capabilities. Unfortunately, most legacy and DIY billing platforms don’t offer either, as they were built to accommodate the business’ needs “back then,” without future growth in mind. As such, they may be perfectly suited for simplistic billing models and lower transaction volumes, but when you throw more complicated offerings and growing user numbers into the mix, they start to jam up.

Many companies take a lean approach to updating their systems, simply adding on new features and updates in order to avoid the upfront replacement costs. But, yet again, the result is a system that works okay for now. Inevitably, the growing business will outgrow the updates, eventually leading to a system that resembles Frankenstein’s monster, cobbled together piece by piece and grunting and groaning under the pressure of growth. While the upfront costs of this approach may be lower, the long-term expenses add up — not to mention the revenue lost through leakage, customer frustration, and missed sales opportunities.

Ytel’s decision to replace its old system entirely was the right one for a growing business. Now, they’re working on a platform that is flexible enough to evolve with their needs, configurable enough to move quickly to support growth, and fully capable of integrating with the company’s other systems. Though the upfront investment may have been higher, they’ll more than make up for it in business efficiency, customer satisfaction, and bottom-line growth.

If your company is ready to be free from the limitations of your legacy billing system, we invite you to contact Gotransverse today to learn how our intelligent billing platform can power your business’ growth. Call us today to schedule your complimentary, personalized demo.