Critical Steps of the Quote-To-Cash Process

Small businesses play an important role in the American economy. Yet, based on a recent study, 72% of small/mid-sized businesses are expected to increase their revenue by 10%. In order to sustain growth, it’s very important to put processes in place to manage customer expectations and daily operations.

When you implement a quote-to-cash process successfully you create higher revenue management, improve aspects of quoting, better contracts, advance everyone involved and stimulate sales cycles. As a result of this, you will improve your customer satisfaction, make more deals, stay ahead of your competition and increase revenue.

Here are the critical steps of the quote-to-cash process:

1.    Pricing

Keeping up with innovation in pricing is very important. Some companies run into a problem what is called “the head”. Manual processes and heavy use of spreadsheets plays a big role in this.

Thus, it’s imperative to keep your price list current and use online solutions to ensure you have one price list that everyone use.  It helps reduce redundancy and errors in price quotes to customers.

2.    Quote creation

There are three main steps to quote creation process: 1) creation, 2) review and negotiation 3) customer approval. It’s important to focus on providing the customer with a solution to the challenges they are facing. In a very clear and concise way, the quote should depict an overview of all the task and services being provided with an appropriate timeline.

When creating a price quote, you should put in place a process to ensure the information is consistent and accurate. When done manually, quoting may take more time and be prone to more errors. Automated platforms for sale configuration is faster and produce 100% quotes easy.

3.    Negotiation

This part of the process determines whether you will close the deal. So, it’s vital to keep track of all negotiations to ensure customer expectations are set properly. Have a means of communication that easy, simple and convenient for your customer while you track the conversation.

It is very important to begin negotiating with a position of strength by focusing on the win-win.   You will become more successful if you pay extreme attention to the terms and conditions as well as understanding what all parties need and address everyone’s concerns.

4.    Contract management

Returning signed agreements with your clients’ need to be made as easy as possible. Having an e-signature tool can be very essential in helping to ensure the agreements are signed and in a centralized database.

You don’t want your clients wasting time printing documents or possibly forgetting about them, this is a more automated method of closing deals. Overall, e-signature tools allow you to see who has signed, where they are in the process and easily send reminders to keep the process moving forward.

5.    Invoicing

It takes multiple steps to finalize a sale of a service or product. Don’t forget about the part that actually pays you. After an order is made, the invoice or quote balance should to be sent in order for payment to be collected.

Make sure your invoices are done correctly the first time so customers understand what the remaining balances are and what has been paid when. When sending invoices with errors to your customers, they are less likely to pay you for your services. It’s also very important to follow up with the customer to make sure they received the invoice and know what is expected of them.

6.    Payment

You want to make sure making the payment is as easy as possible for the customer. Whether you’re dealing with payments manually or automated, an accurate system must be implemented to get the payment of the customer and handle the inflow. Receiving the payment is the final process so you want to leave a positive impression of your customers so they will come back.

Having a good grasp of what a quote-to-cash process is important as it’s a critical part of your daily operations. This process serves as the foundation of your success.

Source: Critical Steps of the Quote-To-Cash Process

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For more articles like this, check out our small business blog:

• Reasons Why You Should Go Paperless

• Value-Based Quotes that Win More business

About Mosspaper

With Mosspaper anyone can create, sign, track and accept quotes and contracts anywhere. Mosspaper provides a streamlined paperless quote and contract renewal SaaS solution from creation to sales renewals, allowing users to monitor and track work.  The company offers a quote creator tool, paperless approval process, centralized customer communications, e-signature, payment integration, real-time notifications, and data analytics for small businesses.

To learn more more information about Mosspaper and how Mosspaper works, please visit our website.