Subscription Management Software 4 Features Every Business Needs

The idea of using a subscription management software is evolving as more businesses move towards the subscription-revenue model.

In 2020, the subscription economy witnessed one of the biggest booms in the market. With eCommerce amounting to almost $225 billion in subscriptions, market experts predict a growth of 305% by 2025.

That is to say, by that time, global eCommerce subscriptions will be an industry worth almost $687 billion.

For SaaS and other cloud-based subscriptions, the amount for 2020 was at $292 billion and it’s predicted to grow at least 183%, making the industry worth $536 billion.

The above-mentioned predictions make it clear that businesses need to switch to the recurring revenue model.

Those that have already or are switching to a subscription business model need to stay ahead of the fierce competition that waits ahead.

This is where a subscription management software can make the most important difference.

That’s because once you know all the features that a subscription management platform can provide, you’ll understand that it will form the basis of your subscription business’ infrastructure itself.

With the right software, you can automate almost all hassles of subscription management and focus on growing your business.

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So, what makes a subscription management software the best one for your business?

These 4 features, namely:

Recurring Billing and Invoicing
Analytics and Reporting
Self-Service Portal
Integrations

Recurring Billing and Invoicing

Subscription businesses entail long, hectic and repetitive tasks that mostly involve recurring billing and invoicing.

Charging every customer for the amount of data or product they’ve consumed or at regular intervals is a difficult process. Especially if you’re doing it manually, repetition doesn’t mean reduction of errors overtime.

To the contrary, businesses that grow to 100+ clients can verify that designing, sending, and processing invoices becomes more error-prone.

This is because it’s almost impossible for even the most skilled accountants and financial experts to prorate every bill carefully.

Moreover, designing invoices, ensuring payments have been made on time, processed and reconciled are all important but difficult tasks.

This is where a subscription management software comes in with its recurring billing and invoicing features.

And with an option like SubscriptionFlow, you can relax while all your new and old customers are billed accordingly.

These platforms handle proration and can be customized to accommodate a variety of billing model and pricing strategies.

Whether you work with usage-based, tiered based, volume based, flat-fee, freemiums, or even a hybrid billing model, you can process customers subscribing to different plans automatically.

Moreover, a robust subscription management system can also allow you to charge your customers based on periods of your choosing.

That means you can even offer weekly or semi-annual subscription plans and automate their billing and invoicing accordingly.

In addition to this, you’ll also find that contemporary subscription market trends involve frequent use of coupons, rewards, subscription gifts, etc.

This trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down and businesses that are not making the most of this are lagging behind.

Obviously, you can’t offer a system this complex without having a software in the backend equipped to handle this.

Since it entails security, fraud prevention, reuse complications, etc., you need to make sure that an effective system is processing all these offers.

And with a modern subscription-based platform like SubscriptionFlow, you can streamline this process.

Self-Service Portal

Subscription businesses work with recurring revenue and the only way to ensure you continue receiving it is customer retention.

Achieving maximum customer lifetime value is the most important job for a subscription business and for that, customer experience matters.

Handling customer queries and concerns to offer support is one aspect of customer experience that requires interaction and merchant participation.

However, when it comes to tasks like upgrading, downgrading, unsubscribing, resubscribing or questions about volume consumption, you can’t address everything.

At least, not if you have a substantial number of customers to deal with.

This is where a customer self-service portal comes into play, which is another feature your subscription management platform should provide.

A portal can do more than just automate the hassle of addressing customer concerns and taking above-mentioned actions repeatedly.

While your customers are on your portal, you can check their activity and monitor their behavior to identify key moments.

These moments can include intervention points that can help you retain customers or even upsell or cross-sell your other plans/products.

A customer portal can be customized to provide greetings, automate event-based messages, or advertise your business.

Analytics and Reporting

Businesses require insights and carefully conducted analyses on a regular basis.

This helps in tracking progress, monitor your customer retention metrics and most importantly, converting new customers.

Analytics for recurring payments can be more difficult to surmise than for one-time payments. The nuances of critically evaluating your business growth can be mathematically frustrating.

Even calculating things such as ARR, MRR, CAC, CRR, etc. can be frustrating for the uninitiated.

And instead of learning the calculations to attempt them yourself, why not have a subscription management system do it for you?

Since these platforms come equipped with AI-based algorithms that analyze your recurring payments and customer activity, you can be sure you’re getting a 360-degree view of your business.

Regardless of the billing model you’re using, your subscription management system will adjust your bills, calculate your payment periods and offer predictions and analyses automatically.

Another feature of a subscription management platform that is required by businesses is reporting.

Analyses carried out in the backend involve complex calculations over algorithms that aren’t understandable by non-technical personnel.

And if you want to share your databases with other departments to bring them in the know, you need reports.

These reports will need to be clearly defined and easy to read before they can be published or shared.

This is something that a subscription management platform can help you automate. Not only will these reports be customizable, but they’ll also feature datasets that your business requires.

Integrations

Integrations are the backbone of SaaS. Offering a cloud-based solution to a business problem isn’t enough. You need the platform you’re providing to be flexible.

The advantages of going for a SaaS platform are twofold.

Firstly, there are customizations that a business might need that aren’t already available in a product.

With integration options, merchants have the freedom to embed any API or even a full CRM into their SaaS solution.

Secondly, integrations allow businesses to stay ahead of the competition with features that can boost your business performance exponentially.

For example, you can enhance customer experience by integrating HubSpot and other marketing tools to understand what your audience likes and dislikes about your business.

Similarly, integrations can also maximize revenue generation, an example of which can be integrating payment gateways.

By allowing your customers the privilege to choose the payment gateway and method of their preference, you’ll be increasing conversions.

Several SaaS companies have testified to the profitability increase their businesses experienced with the addition of payment gateways.

That’s because your target audience evolves and sometimes crosses regional borders when your business is scaling and growing.

If your buyers from one region prefer the use of Stripe in one country, audiences from another country might prefer PayPal or Adyen.

Conclusion

Businesses operating with a recurring revenue model need a subscription management platform to streamline repetitive tasks. We’ve looked at 4 features that are prerequisites for a robust system that can help business automate their operations.

These include recurring billing and invoicing, a customer self-service portal, analytics and reporting, and integrations.

Individually as well as collectively, these features are necessary for companies that want to reduce manual labor, focus resources towards development and growth and maximize revenue generation.

If you’re interested in getting such a system for yourself, get in touch with experts at SubscriptionFlow today.

We will discuss your business niche and requirements to design you a custom subscription management platform that can cater to your business needs.