From XU Magazine, 
Issue 26

Billing Automation - It’s a Win-Win!

An automated billing platform like Emersion will help your team to manage complex billing processes while also helping your clients to improve profitability and reduce cash flow volatility.
This article originated from the Xero blog. The XU Hub is an independent news and media platform - for Xero users, by Xero users. Any content, imagery and associated links below are directly from Xero and not produced by the XU Hub.
You can find the original post here:

If you’ve ever worked with MSPs, telcos or utility providers, you’ll have an idea of just how difficult it can be to manage complex billing through Xero. This often means manually adding usage and pro-rata charges to invoices, which is time consuming and can lead to errors.

The larger the customer base, the more difficult this is to manage. This is where a business automation platform like Emersion can help. 

Emersion can take the stress out of your billing process. By synchronising with Xero in real time, we are able to automate the entire accounts receivable process including invoice generation and payment collection. This will save time and reduce the need for costly re-work. 

At the same time, we’ll help your clients to improve profitability, lower their operating costs, reduce volatility in their cash flow and minimise their exposure to reseller debts. 

It’s a win-win! Here’s how we do it:

Improved cash flow through billing automation

Emersion automates the entire billing process from receiving and processing usage, to pro-rata charges calculation, invoice generation, payment processing, reconciliation and collections. This minimises the work for accounting and bookkeeping teams and means that your clients’ bill runs will go out on time, every time. 

Automated collections notifications reduce your clients’ average invoice payment time and can even automatically apply late payment fees to encourage prompt payment of all accounts. 

Emersion bills in real time and supports sending multiple invoices for the one payment period, so your clients can charge for ad hoc services when they happen and any other subscription services at the end of the billing period. At the same time, they can opt for shorter billing periods often leading to improved cash flow. 

Minimise exposure to reseller debts 

Often when a company is reselling services (such as voice, data or energy), they are liable for any usage charges, regardless of whether their end users have paid their invoices. Emersion’s service management functionality helps to minimise your clients’ exposure to reseller debts. 

With service management, your clients’ can limit this exposure by setting a maximum amount of time that an invoice can remain unpaid before the service is suspended. If the end-user has failed to make a payment by this point in time their service is automatically marked as suspended until payment is made and no further usage fees can be generated.

Lower operating costs through business automation

Emersion can automate entire business processes including billing, collections and reporting. This will help your team to work more efficiently.

At the same time, we can also automate your clients’ with provisioning and order management processes which will save time and improve customer experience for their end users. 


Minimise Fees

Payment fees add up. There are ways you can minimise the amount your clients end up paying including: 

  • Working with the right providers - Many of Emersion’s payment integrations have lower fees than commonly used providers like Stipe and Paypal.
  • Fee routing - By integrating with multiple payment merchants, your clients can route payments through whichever provider has the lowest fees for certain transaction types such as credit card or direct debit via bank account. For instance, if payment provider A offers a flat fee of 2% per transaction, and payment provider B has a fee of 2.5% for AMEX transactions, and 1% for every other transaction type we are able to route the AMEX transactions through Provider A, and all other transactions through provider B.  
  • Adding a payment surcharge to invoices - You can automatically add a payment surcharge to certain transaction types, passing the fee onto your client’s end users. 
  • This combination of lowering fees and on-charging transaction costs improves the margin on every service sold and is especially helpful when your clients are selling lower margin products like internet, mobile phone or energy plans. 

Maximise share of wallet

Usage and pro-rata charges calculation happens automatically in Emersion, which means you’ll never leave money on the table. In addition to this, our contract management system is able to calculate and apply break fees for early termination of a contract. 

In addition to this, Emersion’s smart invoice templates can be customised to display advertising that can be used to upsell, cross-promote or incentivise longer contract terms, ensuring the maximum share of your clients’ wallet possible. 

Contract Management

Emersion stores information about your customer’s contracts, including the products and services that are included and when the contract expires. We can automatically calculate any break fees for existing a contract early, and

Partner with Emersion today

We’re looking to partner with accountants and bookkeepers all around the world and are prepared to pay a generous commission for every client your business refers to us. Click here for more information about joining Emersion’s partner program.

Why leave it there?

For more information about joining Emersion’s partner program

Straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our newsletter for updates as they happen
We hate spam too. We NEVER sell our mailing list.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.