Drive Recurring Revenue with Salesforce AR Automation
For companies that rely on subscription revenue, manual accounts receivable (AR) processes can hinder sustainable growth. These processes create bottlenecks that strain cash flow and put a damper on customer relationships.
Fortunately, by automating accounts receivable in Salesforce, you can flip AR from a costly burden to a growth driver. Salesforce AR automation helps speed up cash flow, boost customer retention, and reallocate resources back to your sales and marketing teams.
If you’re looking for a way to streamline your subscription business’s operations in Salesforce, here’s what you need to know.
Understanding Accounts Receivable Automation Software
Let’s start with the basics: What is accounts receivable?
Accounts receivable, or AR, is revenue owed to your business. When a product or service — i.e., a monthly subscription — has been delivered but not paid for, that account must be addressed (outreach, payment retries, etc.) until the payment is finalized. This manual process can be a headache for accounting teams, even with the help of a customer relationship management (CRM) system like Salesforce.
However, AR doesn’t have to be manual. Automated collections services make Salesforce accounts receivable processes easier. Using Salesforce as a foundation, accounting teams can automate invoice creation, payment processing, and record-keeping. This uses fewer resources and reduces errors.
Can you automate AR directly within Salesforce? Yes, but Salesforce itself is not an AR automation tool. You’ll need a third-party payment processor like Chargent, which integrates payments with Salesforce, bringing all your accounting and customer data together under one roof. Chargent’s Automated Collections feature handles the heavy lifting of AR for you, freeing your staff to focus their efforts on other vital tasks.
The Automation Advantage for Revenue Growth
Feel like automation is everywhere these days? You’re not wrong. That’s because automation tools are faster, easier to use, and more accessible than ever before. Automating certain business processes is no longer an option — it’s necessary for B2C companies to keep up with the competition.
Accounts receivable automation is no exception. For subscription-based companies that rely on steady, predictable revenue, automating Salesforce AR is one of the best ways to ensure that revenue keeps growing by cutting out wasteful processes.
Here are some of the key benefits of AR automation:
Accelerated Cash Flow
Old-school collections processes are slow. Manually tracking invoices, dunning, and recording payments takes up valuable time and hinders cash flow, leaving too many accounts unpaid for far too long. That’s why many businesses choose first-party collections, or handling their collections in-house, a process that automation further streamlines.
Automation speeds up cash flow by doing things — well, automatically. That means:
- Automated invoice tracking: Keep track of unpaid accounts in real time.
- Smart dunning: Tools like Chargent can automatically communicate the missed payment to your customers, and can retry the payment collection for you.
- Faster payment reconciliation: Automatic reconciliation reduces errors, guaranteeing complete and accurate revenue statements.
Faster cash flow leads to more working capital for your business. Reducing the time an account sits unpaid in AR increases the revenue your business can reinvest in growth initiatives. It’s like taking out boulders to let a river flow smoothly.
Boosted Customer Retention
Automation doesn’t just streamline payments on the company’s side. It also supports a smoother customer experience, in turn improving retention.
With automation, customers will know right away if their transaction fails or if they’ve missed a payment. They’ll receive proactive messages about upcoming payments, price changes, and other updates to their account.
Salesforce AR automation also helps sales teams better manage their customer relationships. Automation tools like Chargent offer a 360-degree customer view in Salesforce, so no customers slip through the cracks.
Higher retention rates mean more reliable subscription revenue in the long run.
Strategic Resource Allocation
Accounts receivable automation saves valuable staff hours and funds that used to go to tedious AR processes. You can reallocate those resources to support your sales and marketing teams.
For a subscription-based business, this means targeting and nurturing qualified leads. The resources saved with AR automation can go toward specialized services that focus on securing more high-value subscribers, which will boost long-term revenue growth. It’s not just about raising acquisition rates — it’s about prioritizing customer relationships that bring maximum revenue potential to your business.
How To Automate Accounts Receivable in Salesforce
Salesforce is a CRM system, not an accounting platform. So, how can you automate accounts receivable in Salesforce? It’s all about payment integration.
A payment processor like Chargent seamlessly integrates with Salesforce, bringing all your customer and financial data to the same platform. This gives sales professionals a bird’s-eye view of the entire sales pipeline. It also streamlines communication between sales, marketing, and accounting teams, giving everyone access to the data they need in one place.
After integrating your payments in Salesforce, you can automate accounts receivable processes by implementing:
- Automated collections software
- Smart dunning
- Invoice tracking
- Automated data collection and reporting
It’s important to understand that AR automation does not replace your accounting team — rather, it takes time-consuming processes off their hands, saving vital human resources for more important tasks that drive business growth.
Maximize Subscription Revenue Growth With AR Automation
Accounts receivable is an unavoidable part of any subscription business. Tracking and following up on unpaid accounts used to be a costly challenge for accounting professionals, but that doesn’t have to be the case anymore. Automating AR processes in Salesforce turns accounts receivable from a cost sink to a driver of growth.
If you want to automate your accounts receivable processes in Salesforce, the first step is to choose the right payment processor. Chargent is a Salesforce native app that integrates payments directly with Salesforce. This combines vital payment and customer data on the same platform, allowing you to automate collections, invoices, tracking, dunning, and more.
The result? Faster cash flow, an improved customer experience, and fewer wasted resources. Get started with a free trial of Chargent to see how automation can fuel your business’s subscription revenue growth.
