Billing System Migration: How To Nail It?

Billing system migration is the process of replacing your existing billing system with a new one. Companies opt for this process to adopt new tools, and upgrade their functionality. Billing system migration is painstaking without a proper plan in place. Some of the pitfalls that come with unplanned billing migration are faulty revenue reporting, data duplication, and customer churn.

Our platform, SubscriptionFlow, is a billing system migration expert. It provides you a smooth transition, without disrupting your workflows or letting you lose customers.

In this blog, we will explore why companies migrate to a new billing system, the pain points of billing system migration, the best practices to overcome these obstructions, and SubscriptionFlow’s tailored solutions that guarantee your business a seamless transition.

Why Businesses Need Billing System Migration

There are a number of factors which urge a business to replace its billing system with a more advanced one. These factors come into being as a business expands, and its needs evolve. Following are some of these factors:

The business’s existing billing system is outdated. It cannot handle complex payment scenarios. It does not support multiple payment gateways, and modern compliance standards.
The current billing solution is not scalable. If your SaaS business’s customer base is rapidly growing, you would require a more scalable billing platform to handle high volumes of transactions for you.
The business lacks access to advanced features. Getting onboard a robust billing system means benefiting from advanced features like automated recurring billing, customized invoicing, and revenue recognition.
The existing system does not support integrations. Growing businesses need to integrate with external systems such as CRM or accounting systems, to avoid data silos. Having all your data in one place is essential to track your operations.
The current billing system does not allow you to switch business models. If a business wants to shift to an entirely new model, such as it wants to move from a traditional model to a subscription based one, it needs to migrate to a new billing system. A system which supports recurring subscriptions, and advanced pricing strategies.
The existing system offers less and costs more. Outdated systems and homegrown solutions can be costly to maintain. On the other hand, modern cloud-based billing systems are easy on the pocket, and more efficient.

The Pain Points of Billing System Migration

It is natural for a company to have billing migration concerns. That is because it involves several challenges to be dealt with:

Data Migration Issues

Billing system migration involves the transfer of large volumes of data from the old system to the new one. The data includes all of your customer information, financial records and billing history. The data migration process is complex and error-prone. It increases the risk of data duplication and data corruption if not handled diligently. It can affect the billing operations negatively, once the new system has been set up.

Integration Problems

The new billing system must be capable of smoothly integrating with external software such as CRMs or accounting platforms. Integrations are necessary to ensure that there is perfect synchronization between all the platforms.

Service Disruption

Downtime during the billing system migration can lead to revenue loss. This is because it can disrupt the customer services. To prevent this, companies should schedule their data transfer in the hours that least impact their customer engagement. Pre-estimating the downtime hours helps you schedule your migration better.

Managing Recurring Billing

It is important for subscription-based businesses to shift to a new billing system without interrupting their scheduled payments. The subscription plans must be transferred to the new software as they are.

Compliance Risks

You have to ensure that your new billing vendor equips you with financial regulatory compliance. It is necessary to avoid compliance penalties, and for financial transparency.

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Training Employees

If you perform a billing system migration, your employers may take some time to adapt to the new software. It affects your business’s productivity. Training the employees timely is pivotal in system migration.

Make sure that your new billing system offers you effective solutions to combat these issues. So that you stay at the top of your game.

Best Practices for Efficient Billing System Migration

Always test your billing system migration by transferring a small sample data first. Then transfer your entire data load. This is necessary for ensuring there are no discrepancies between the two systems, and that the data is perfectly in sync. If any complications arise during system validation with sample data, you would know them ahead of time, for quick resolution.
Test your data in a sandbox environment. A sandbox simulates the billing system migration process using a copy of your data. It helps you in identifying issues like mismatched fields, information discrepancies or missing data. You can rectify these issues before the actual migration.
Use the data export templates offered by the new billing vendor. These templates are created to map the necessary fields in the new system. Export templates format and categorize your data for you, upholding data integrity. Moreover, ask if your platform provider offers you automation tools. Utilize those tools to automate your migration process, to save your time and effort.
Adopt the phased approach to go about your billing system migration. Break down the migration process into manageable stages. For example, you can schedule the transfer of your active subscriptions first, and the inactive subscriptions later. This kind of migration is advantageous if you have different customer segments.
Think of billing system migration as a chance to clean up and restructure your data. So that if there are any data inefficiencies in your previous system, they do not get transferred into the new system ditto.
Make sure to disable webhooks and email notifications. If not disabled, during the billing system migration, these can become activated, sending misleading messages or emails to the customers. This adds to customer confusion, and dissatisfaction. You can re-enable notifications after the migration is complete.
Avoid downtime during the renewal cycles. Customers expect an uninterrupted service; hence you must give them one. Otherwise, service activation delays can cause the customers to be frustrated. Scheduling downtime after the renewal cycles protects customer relationships, and contributes to operational efficiency.

Champion Your Billing System Migration with SubscriptionFlow

SubscriptionFlow provides your company a smooth billing system migration experience by addressing all the pain points discussed above. We facilitate your transition through these features:

Automated Data Migration Tools
Ready-Made Data Export Templates
Sandbox Testing Space
Phased Migration Approach
Data Organization Tools
Customer Communication Management
Effective Renewal Management

Book a demo with SubscriptionFlow to leverage these features, and be ready for the post-migration thrive!

Conclusion

Billing system migration is the replacement of your existing billing system with a more advanced one. Companies opt for this migration for improved scalability, efficient integrations and up to date billing features. SubscriptionFlow helps you tackle the pain points that come with billing system migration, and offers you smooth onboarding. With SubscriptionFlow, access solutions like automated data migration tools, data export templates, and data organization tools for a successful switch.