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Learning from modern revenue automation success stories
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04 Minute Read
Audit-proof revenue recognition for any business model
Zuora Revenue, The Leader In Revenue Recognition Automation® ranks as the #1 Product for Automated Revenue Management (ARM). That’s why the world’s most innovative Finance and Accounting teams trust Zuora Revenue.
Improving efficiency and employee work-life balance
Industry: Software and technology
Problem
A global sports video hardware and software needed a solution that would enable them to meet compliance requirements, reduce their monthly time to close, and scale with future company and contract growth.
Solution
When the company had to move to ASC 606, they implemented Zuora Revenue, a standalone solution to record single-billed contracts for all entities. That switch moved the team closer to where it needed to be in terms of removing manual tasks from the workload.
However, the real positive effects started showing when they implemented Zuora Billing along with Zuora Revenue. Those two solutions together resolved additional manual processes, which helped the accounting team to work more efficiently and shorten the time frame to close consolidated revenue.
Results
- The revenue accounting team was able to maintain a consistent close window even during the peak season
- 25% reduction in manual revenue recognition processes
- Quick and easy reporting for month-end close
- Better work-life balance for employees
- Elevated the roles of the accounting team to focus on more complex revenue scenarios, spending extra time on analysis, and defining and building best practices for the future
“During our high-volume busy season, we would have to add additional days to close the books each year. With the move to Zuora’s integrated solution between Billing and Revenue, we have been able to maintain a consistent close schedule.”
– Stephanie Thorin, Senior Manager of Revenue Accounting
Transforming revenue operations for future growth and scalability
Industry: High tech
Problem
An industry-leading customer success and product experience software provider was leveraging a combination of spreadsheets and scripts to manage the company’s revenue. With this manual process, a large burden was placed on Finance teams and there was a high risk for errors, resulting in time-consuming recalculations during audits. The company needed a solution that would automate its revenue-related processes and provide more accurate revenue reporting.
Solution
The company chose Zuora Revenue to tackle these challenges, including revenue recognition, automation of key business processes, access to real-time data, and improved visibility, thereby reducing the time required to complete tasks, and decreasing risks associated with manual calculations.
Working closely with Zuora’s Professional Services team, Zuora Revenue was implemented in 9 months.
Results
- Greater levels of automation and revenue visibility
- Easy access to more accurate, real-time data
- 30% reduction in time to close the books
- 50% reduction in audit times
- More time to focus on strategic initiatives instead of manual work
- More support for complexity as the business grows and scales
“With our previous system, basic operational activities, day-to-day revenue reports were a heavy lift, and we didn’t have real time visibility in the data to ensure accuracy. Now, with Zuora Revenue, once sales orders and invoice details are loaded, we can easily pull reports and count on the accuracy of the information it contains to start our monthly close process. As a result, we have better visibility into revenue recognized, and our forecasting has improved significantly.”
– Anna Lee, Director of Revenue
Increasing speed, automation, and insights to better serve customers
Industry: Healthcare, manufacturing and IOT
Problem
As a global healthcare services and technology company launched new subscription-based products driven by the cloud and artificial intelligence (AI), their existing IT infrastructure (built for one-time transactions) didn’t have the capabilities to support a subscription business model with multiple customer touch points.
Solution
With the addition of Zuora Billing and Zuora Revenue to their IT stack, the company was able to automate previously manual processes and institute new key performance indicators (KPIs) to power their subscription recurring revenue business model.
Results
- Greater levels of automation helped tame complexity
- More than a 60% reduction of manual process steps
- 75% reduction in processing time
- Gained valuable insights that validated their subscription business model
- Increased productivity and provided a foundation for future scalability and growth
“Zuora Revenue has reduced the number of manual process steps by more than 60% and shortens the processing time by about 75%. And it also supports the long-term success of the subscription model, with new leading KPIs such as active users, premium conversion rates, and churn rates.”
– Florian Rachny, Head of Digital Business Processes
Saving a revenue team hundreds of hours per year
Industry: High tech
Problem
A cloud computing company was using a revenue management system that required substantial customization for its subscription offerings and caused a lot of performance bottlenecks. On the reporting side, their system lacked the flexibility their revenue team needed to run an efficient process. As a result, this delayed the company from evolving their product offering.
Solution
As the company created subscriptions at a fast pace, Zuora Billing allowed their revenue team to streamline configuration by setting up a product catalog that runs end-to-end through its ERP system.
Meanwhile, Zuora Revenue gave them reporting options that supported a more accurate and faster revenue reconciliation process.
Results
- Saved the revenue team an estimated 552 hours of work per year
- More efficient, low-risk revenue recognition process
- Gained access to powerful reporting tools
- Significantly reduced time-to-close
“Zuora Revenue was designed from the ground up around the needs of revenue accountants. After just one quarter, our team experienced numerous benefits. The bundle configuration improved the accuracy of our revenue allocations, the customizable grouping rule setup eliminated tedious manual tasks for close, and the user-friendly interface extended us increased functionality and convenience.”
– Tony Zhang, Senior Revenue Manager
Take the next steps
Whether your business is up-and-coming or enterprise grade, Zuora offers revenue recognition solutions that match your needs.
