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What is Quote-to-Cash?

The quote to cash process flow includes elements of sales, account management, order fulfillment, billing, and accounts receivables functions for the entire sales cycle. It is a sequence of steps undertaken by the sales team right from offering the initial quote through the process of negotiating, fulfilling, and billing, collecting, and setting up the stage for the next sale. 

While in many organizations, these steps are still treated as independent processes, it’s worth noting that with individual management, these pieces bring about inefficiencies and duplication to what can be an effective sales cycle. Since each of these steps are customer-centric and are interdependent, they should be tied together in a single business process that is powered by technology.

Implementing a QTC solution enables businesses to optimize these operations within the said process and help to close a higher percentage of deals thereby increasing customer satisfaction and growing revenue. 

With an optimized QTC business process, sales representatives can easily view profitable product combinations, deliver accurate information to the customer, and be automatically prompted about renewals. Sales resources provide visibility to assess cash flows, reduce errors, and improve reporting capabilities.  

What Is the Salesforce Quote To Cash Process?

In December 2015, Salesforce acquired SteelBrick, a California based independent software vendor who built the very first one of a kind quote to cash software suite for businesses. This acquisition accelerated the ability of Salesforce (the undisputed CRM leaders) to offer higher value to its partners in the form of a solution that manages customer life cycles completely. 

Salesforce Quote to Cash is built on the world’s number-one CRM solution that incorporates Salesforce CPQ, Salesforce Billing, and Salesforce Lightning into a single, comprehensive CRM-enhanced powerhouse and gives sales managers complete control over the sales process. 

With this easy-to-use cloud-based tool users can automate quotes and invoices, collect payments, manage subscriptions, view and adjust terms, and also generate reports from its unique and intuitive dashboard. Salesforce Quote to Cash is also mobile-friendly thereby rendering complete access to all the tools that expedite the process of selling. While the very sales process may be complex, the Salesforce Quote to Cash solution breaks it down and empowers sales teams to discover the complete potential of qualified leads and convert them into a successful sale. 

Questions To Ask About Your Quote-to-Cash Process.

The quote to cash process flow chart begins at the point where a customer asks for a quote and the sales team initiates the process of configuring the quote. This includes the pricing and development of terms and conditions and continues through the creation and delivery of a proposal. Post customer acceptance the quote to cash cycle also involves invoicing, billing, and cash collection right up to the point of subscription billing, renewals, and credit card payments. 

Let us now address what needs to be done to ensure the quote-to-cash tool addresses the specifics of a unique sales cycle.

Map your quote to cash business process by covering the following basic steps:

• Selection, configure, price, quote, propose, contract, order, renew, bill, collect, recognize, and analyze. Adding or deleting can be figured out as you progress.
• Understand with sales operations, legal, and finance departments the nitty-gritty of each step in the mentioned process. 
• Remember to ask a lot of questions on the process of how inputs are gathered, how add-ons and bundles are managed, and also on the approval process.
• Bear customer experience in mind as internal processes are examined. How informed is your customer? 
• Identify stakeholders and recognize those who are responsible for each step. For each step you look at, identify who, what, where, why, and time aspects of all layers. 
• Record the details of all of the tools, systems, and applications used. Examine the review process, take note of the process, and email flows. 
• How and where do these different steps occur and how is data storage handled? Also, understand the back and forth processes of different stages to work on streamlining them.
• Determine how and why certain process flows were created and the modalities behind them. 
• Track the time taken for each step to ensure that sales representatives spend most of their time selling and not in the backend process.

With this in place, the scope for improvement can be identified and bottlenecks can be eliminated in a far more effective manner with a QTC solution. 

The Quote To Cash Process

The quote-to-cash solution optimizes the entire customer-centric (read final) stages of the sales funnel right from initial offers (or quotes) to the final payment (or cash). More specifically, quote-to-cash encompasses configure price quote (CPQ) and includes the following nine steps:

1. Configuration 

Each business creates products or services to be presented to customers. This function helps tailor presentations to customers individually thus fulfilling clients’ unique needs.

2. Pricing 

Just as product presentation is personalized, the pricing should likewise be personalized. The motivation to finalize a purchase largely depends on how much account discounts and other special offers are offered to the clients.

3. Quoting 

Post price customization, the next logical step is to create a formal quote to lure those customers who are already considering buying from your business. An accurate, timely, and easy to follow quote may just nail these prospects for your business.

4. Contract Creation 

Creating a contract marks the beginning of recording information of a new customer in your business. All relevant customer information gets mapped with his/her contract field that is created.

5. Contract Negotiation 

Prices are revised several times over the life of a sale and therefore changes must be carried out in an accurate and timely manner. Otherwise, it remains unclear for stakeholders and can halt the progress of leads.

6. Order Fulfillment 

Post signing of contracts, it is the responsibility of the business to ensure that the right clients receive the right orders. This means organizing invoices, tracking stock, and ensuring that any shipping is delivered on time and in a professional manner.

7. Billing 

Post the final sale, a bill is sent to the customer with all charges accounted for. Now, this should include discounts that have been agreed-upon or other special deals that should be created and sent within a pre-established timeframe.

8. Revenue Recognition 

The influx of money that is received as payment for products/services has to be tracked and reviewed for accuracy.

9. Renewal

Renewals are a guaranteed source of income for the business if contracts and sales are followed up promptly. Sales resources are prompted for automatic renewals that can be fulfilled with the help of a QTC solution.

Contact Appshark To Help Streamline Your Salesforce Quote To Cash Process

Salesforce Quote to Cash addresses the most conventional challenges presented during the final stages of the sales cycle through a combination of process automation, guided selling, and quote management. It is possible to entirely expedite the process of a quote-to-cash by preprogramming custom rules for bulk discounts, approvals, customizations, with the expertise of experienced Salesforce Consultants. 

AppShark is both a Gold Consulting Partner and a Product Development Partner based in Dallas, Texas. Our implementation process which includes customization, set up, and configuration – has been perfected through the many years served in the Salesforce industry. We also provide software integration services including strategy, development, and management to enable a continual flow of information from the cloud, premise to premise, or from cloud to premise platforms.

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