Everything You Wanted to Know about Quote-to-Cash for Business Optimization

Digital transformation is not an option anymore but an essential component for all businesses that target being competitive and profitable. A streamlined due to optimized quote generation and documentation management sales process makes businesses more competitive regardless of the industry. Organizations use Quote-to-Cash solutions to optimize sales funnels, from offering a quote to payment.

Businesses that incorporate and use a custom-tailored Quote-to-Cash process benefit from optimized in-house operations, improved productivity, and growing client satisfaction due to the acceleration of quote creation and payment processes.

Quote-to-Cash System: What Does It Include?

Quote-to-Cash (also known as QTC and Q2C) software offers a very customizable end-to-end sales solution that includes all stages of the sale process, starting from initial offering generation and its adjustment all the way through invoice issuance to payment processing.

Traditionally, creating a quote and drafting an offer were performed manually. Employees had to find and compare multiple sheets and files before configuring a custom-tailored proposal. A sales cycle based on multiple manual tasks is slow and inefficient. What is more important, it is prone to multiple errors at any stage of the sale process. Hence, every time a deal can be at risk leading to an unfavorable customer experience.

At present, the right configuration of a quote for every client is essential to get successful. The growing product, service, and offer complexity requires advanced instruments. Automated recommendations of the configuration shorten the time sales representatives usually spend searching through all listings. Besides, the right combination of promotions and discounts that have proved to be efficient can be applied automatically to get a higher sale rate.

When an organization delivers an accurate quote fast, customers are more inclined to complete the deal compared to slow, manually collected quotes from competitors. Additionally, Quote-to-Cash software provides a contract generation tool: involved in the sale process employees will see the terms and status of a document at any time, so approval time shortens remarkably.

One of the advantageous functions of the Quote-to-cash process is customer retention management. Quite often, businesses receive the major flow of revenue from subscriptions and repeated customers. Hence, it is vital to keep customers interested and attracted by a personalized approach to renewals and up-selling. With a Quote-to-Cash solution integrated into your existing business ecosystem, you will have a better idea of past quotes and contracts. As a result, you can optimize contract renewals and improve up-selling and cross-selling rates. Armed with the Q2C solution, you will be able to speed up the sale process, as well as monitor and predict the revenue.

Compared to the Order-to-Cash (OTC), the software that automates processes from order placement to getting payment, a Q2C process includes OTC processes, price configuration, and contract & revenue management. In other words, QTC includes operations that precede the order placement, such as quoting and contracting.

The functionality of QTC solutions includes:

• Proposal generation: The software automates the process of proposal creation: products, prices, and customer info are combined into a tailored offering.
• Proposal adjustment: Contract details are automatically altered and adjusted given the incentives and discounts.
• Quotes: The quote is generated automatically and includes products, pricing, and terms of payment.
• Contract management: A contract is automatically compiled and sent to a customer who signs it (typically, eSign is used within the SaaS system) and returns the quote.
• Payment management: Once the contract has been signed, the system sends the invoice, which should be paid via the online or offline method (bank cards, direct debit, ACH, bank wire, check, and so on.)
• Quote-to-cash software allows upselling, cross-selling, and even changing subscriptions.
• Customized billing and automated true-ups.

Integration of Quote-to-Cash software allows organizations of any level to automate time-consuming operations and processes and deliver customized offerings to prospective customers. Real-time data analysis and automated configuration of proposals streamline the workflow and ensure higher quote quality and consistency of sale processes.

QTC Process Step-by-Step:

1. You have a potential customer and you want to deliver an offer.
2. Using Q2C software you generate an offer (price, discount, and special features are automatically selected). The tailored quote is delivered to a customer-to-be.
3. The ready quote can be easily adjusted later to match any prospect’s requirements.
4. Once your quote is approved, a proposal and contract are generated automatically.
5. Then a customer accepts your offer and places an order.
6. The system processes the order.
7. The invoice for the order is automatically created. The customer pays.
8. You receive the payment. The AI-based system collects and analyses data delivering performance reports.
9. The processed data ensures continuous improvement of the quote generation process, as well as up-selling and cross-selling opportunities.

In brief, the key benefits of using a quote-to-cash solution are:

• Notably improves the efficiency of the quote generation process.
• Automation of several processes reduces time of the routine workflow and administrative operations.
• Reduced number of errors. For a flexible sales process, automation eliminates the risk of human errors. The real-time data assessment, automatic proposal generation, and billing leave fewer chances for errors in offerings and contracts.
• Fast and optimized quote generation allows process more customer requests with better results as every quote is automatically adjusted to the customer’s needs.
• Increase in up-selling and cross-selling rates. Upselling options are automatically suggested during quote creation.
• Improved customer satisfaction and loyalty. When quotes are created within seconds and adjusted to answer unique customer needs, invoices are automatically generated, and payment options are fully-integrated, customers are happier with the fast, error-free service.

How to incorporate SAP Quote-to-Cash into the business Infrastructure?

The optimal solution is to find a reliable SAP QTC partner who will consult you about the quote-to-cash cycle, incorporate the custom-tailored solution, and make sure the system functions seamlessly. Business owners that utilize a quote-to-cash solution note a significant acceleration of order processing and in-house productivity.

By all means, Quote-to-Cash software improves sales notably and enhances customer experience. The QTC solutions add to the marketability of service-oriented businesses and become a prerequisite for their financial well-being.