Consistency + Visibility = Predictability
We understand better than most the expectations and pressure heaped upon today’s finance department, and revenue managers in particular. Tasked with a more visible role in management reporting to include planning, budgeting and forecasting, successful financial leaders must inform the operational decision-making of company leadership all the while meeting increased regulatory and market demands for more reliable and transparent information.
The revamped revenue recognition standards announced in 2014 will only increase that pressure.
As Shauna Watson, Global Managing Director of Finance & Accounting for Resources Global Professionals (RGP), said of upcoming expectations, “accounting for revenue will become more time consuming, particularly with all the requirements to reassess things like variable consideration, where a contract exists, etc.”
How to achieve all these seemingly unrealistic goals, you ask?
Revenue automation.
Some in financial leadership positions may view automation technology as added effort and expense, when in fact, the resulting benefits tend to include reduced staffing hours and expenditures.
The return on investment for revenue automation is found in multiple areas, including cost, performance, reliability and visibility. We’ll save a more detailed discussion on the subject of ROI for another day, but for the topic at hand – revenue predictability – consider the following:
- By automating your revenue processes, you will be establishing standardized and repeatable procedures
- Instead of only having access to your revenue numbers around the time of your closing period, revenue automation allows for real-time visibility to these figures around the clock
- From a reporting standpoint, revenue automation allows for consolidated reporting functionality, that is, real-time reporting of a consistent data set which can be analyzed from different viewpoints
In other words, revenue automation offers consistency and visibility. With consistency and visibility, comes predictability.
Or, as we so eloquently stated earlier…
Consistency + Visibility = Predictability
Download Zuora’s new white paper: “The ROI of Revenue Automation.”