“Quote to cash” is a term used to describe the customer journey, from lead to prospect, to opportunity, to a signed customer, to onboarding, and then on to fulfillment, billing and payment. And this customer life cycle also includes recognizing revenue and renewal.
The challenge and why it’s essential
The quote-to-cash process, also known as the lead-to-revenue-recognition process, is essentially “the customer process” and for the most part encapsulates your entire business. It spans multiple departments like sales, finance and fulfillment/delivery, and multiple IT systems such as customer relationship management tools like Salesforce and enterprise resource planning products like NetSuite and Sage. If not designed and managed well, these siloed organizations and systems can create friction and incompatibility points that impede growth.
Benefits of a streamlined quote-to-cash process
- Faster close rates
- Faster payments
- A 360-degree view of the customer to make better, more informed decisions
- Automated customer onboarding and provisioning
- Faster, more accurate quotes
- Efficient, less manually intensive processes
- Scaling to 10x or 100x the number of quotes per time period
- Reduced revenue leakage
Are you ready?
Even the first step of mapping your quote-to-cash process has huge benefits. Having a strong awareness of your current processes and systems can help you assess where you are and where you need to go. Advance planning will help you build a successful capability the first time without inefficiencies and rework.
- What are industry best practices and how can you leverage them for your needs?
- What is your strategic road map and what initiatives are needed to align with your business goals?
- What is your current state and what is needed to bridge the gap in skills, knowledge and capability?
RSM is ready to help you. With a full range of services—assessments, readiness checks, strategic and tactical road maps, application development, IT configuration/development, change management, financial consulting, and compliance—RSM has the extensive experience necessary to lead you to an industry-leading quote-to-cash process.
