Automated Billing System: Software Features, Integrations, Costs
ScienceSoft applies 33 years in software development and practical knowledge of 30+ industries to help customers implement effective billing software.
Automated Billing System in a Nutshell
An automated billing system is designed to generate and send invoices, track and process payments. The solution is especially helpful for businesses with a large and diverse customer base, a wide range of products/services provided, subscription or retainer billing models.
The automated billing system integrates with ERP, CRM, accounting software, and payment gateways. The implementation of a custom automated billing system may take around 10 months. Average costs for building the automated billing system start from $120,000 and can reach $400,000 depending on the solution complexity.
Automated Billing System: Key Features
ScienceSoft builds the automated billing systems for general-purpose and industry-specific (e.g., medical, telecom, transportation) billing. Typically, we cover the following core functionality:
Types of billing
- Order-/delivery-based billing.
- Subscription billing.
- Progress billing.
- Retainer billing.
- Contingency billing.
- Collective billing.
- Metered billing, and more.
Types of invoices
- Standard invoice.
- Credit invoice.
- Debit invoice.
- Mixed credit and debit invoice.
- Commercial invoice.
- Pro forma invoice.
- Timesheet invoice.
- Interim invoice.
Amount due calculation
- Automatically accumulating customer data, order/consumption data, costs of services rendered, and price info from relevant sources (e.g., ERP, CRM, a customer portal, an ecommerce website, a medical practice management system) in the billing workfiles.
- Automatically calculating the amount due based on the pre-defined sequence and summarization rules.
- Automatically calculating and applying taxes, discounts (including those on early payments), additional charges (e.g., interest on late payments, carriage, insurance), and billable expenses.
- Recording the summarized calculations in the invoice summary workfile.
Invoice generation
- Automated invoice generation based on the data provided in the invoice summary workfiles.
- Automatically generating and applying region-specific e-invoice elements, e.g., a unique QR code for e-invoice data validation for Saudi Arabia.
- Customizable invoice templates.
- Multi-language invoices.
- Invoice validation based on SLA/billing guidelines.
- Pre-defined triggers (invalid account, tax location, or invoice date) to identify suspicious invoices that require a manual check.
- Signing invoices using an electronic signature.
- Consolidated invoicing.
- Multi-department invoice approval workflow support.
Invoice submission
- Automated invoice submission to customers via email, messaging apps, or an integrated customer portal.
- One-time/recurring invoicing.
- Advance/on-delivery invoicing.
- Scheduled/on-the-spot invoicing.
- Tracking sent invoices and their delivery statuses.
Payment processing
- Real-time payment processing via a connected custom payment gateway or third-party payment gateways (e.g., PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.Net).
- Support of multiple payment methods, including bank transfers, wire transfers, ACH, credit cards, cheques.
- Multi-currency payments.
- Co-payments under an insurance plan (for medical billing).
- Partial payments, including deposit payment.
- Split payments.
- Automated payment collection by direct debit.
- In-app/email system notifications on received payments.
- Automated allocation of received payments.
- Cash refund/chargeback to the customer’s original payment method.
Dunning management
- Scheduled email/in-app customer notifications on due and overdue payments.
- Automated customer notification and payment retry in case of payment failure based on pre-set retry rules.
- Automated customer notifications about upcoming payment card expiries.
- Automated customer notifications on service termination for late payments.
Portal for internal users
- Portal configuration to match corporate branding.
- Setting up location-based portal content and ads.
Customer self-service portal
- Adding, saving, and updating personal info, billing details, including tax IDs, payment methods, payment card details.
- Managing subscriptions (update, cancel, pause, etc.).
- Paying bills through the portal.
- Making advance payments.
- Tracking paid and outstanding invoices.
Analytics and reporting
Customizable reports and dashboards on:
- Invoice delivery and payment status.
- Money paid/due/overdue, and discounts applied (by time period, customer, product, and more).
- Tax summary (by time period).
- (for subscription businesses) Key subscription metrics, including estimated monthly recurring revenue, customer lifetime value, churn and acquisition rates.
Security and compliance
- Multi-factor authentication.
- Role-based access control.
- Payment data encryption.
- Invoice timestamping.
- End-to-end audit trail.
- Automated fraud detection.
- Customer data retention and deletion policies.
- Compliance with global regulatory standards, including GAAP (ASC 606), IFRS (IFRS 15), SOC1 and SOC2, PCI DSS, SOX, as well PSD2 and GDPR (for the EU), and ZATCA (for Saudi Arabia).
- HIPAA compliance (for medical billing systems).
A Sample Interface of Automated Billing Solutions We Create
Key Integrations for the Automated Billing System
To eliminate double data entry across disparate systems and ensure accurate recording and reporting of payment transactions, ScienceSoft recommends setting up the following integrations:
CRM
- Importing customer personal info, orders and quotes from CRM to the automated billing system to enable consistent input of relevant data when generating invoices.
- Uploading real-time data on received, due, overdue, delayed payments from the billing system to CRM to match payments, dunning or payment delay details to the corresponding CRM records.
Accounting software
Uploading real-time payment data, including money paid/due/overdue, taxes, and discounts, from the billing system into the accounting software to enable automated input of relevant data when creating entries in general ledger/subledgers.
ERP
- Importing data on products/services provided and their prices from ERP to the billing system to enable automated data input for invoice generation.
- Automated loading of payment data, including money paid/due/overdue, taxes, discounts, and invoice payment statuses from the automated billing system to ERP.
Customer portal
- Importing up-to-date customer personal info, billing address, payment methods, orders/subscription details from a customer portal to the automated billing system to ensure accurate and timely invoicing.
- Automated loading of invoices from the automated billing system to the customer portal to enable customers pay invoices via the portal and view their invoice and transaction history.
Success Factors for the Automated Billing System
To maximize value and cost-efficiency of the automated billing solution, ScienceSoft always seeks to cover the following important factors:
Focus on security
To ensure the safety of payments, customer and financial data protection by performing periodic vulnerability scanning and patching, using multi-layer encryption, applying intelligent security, as well minimize the risk of malicious user activities by applying role-based permission model, fraud-detection algorithms, and audit trails.
No-code invoice template editor
To enable non-technical users to create custom invoice templates from scratch, applying a specific billing data structure, country-specific requirements, and branding elements.
Mobile invoicing
To easily generate, send, track invoices, and monitor payments from customers on the go.
Easy-to-use APIs
To enable seamless integration of automated billing software with your ERP, CRM, accounting system, and third-party tools to ensure real-time data sync and eliminate double-data entry.
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ScienceSoft’s Senior Business Analyst and Financial and Banking IT Consultant Natallia Babrovich shares an expert tip: To improve customer payment experience and speed up receiving of due payments, make sure your automated billing system supports a wide range of payment options, from traditional bank transfers and credit cards to innovative payments in cryptocurrencies. |
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Custom Billing Software for a Leading European Marketplace
- Functionality for invoicing, payment processing, debt collection, and more.
- Integration of billing software into the Customer’s online marketplace.
- Flexibility to evolve the solution with new features.
- Automated system scaling from using 2 to > 50 app servers depending on the load.
Customer’s benefit: faster payment processing, streamlined debt collection.
Viber Billing Portal Development
- Self-service functionality for the messenger’s users to track the account balance and manage payments.
- Automated payment processing.
- Support for various payment options, including Visa, MasterCard, PayPal.
- Real-time fraud detection.
Customer’s benefit: A convenient and scalable billing portal that helps the Customer receive due payments faster.
StreamServe Invoice Management Software for a Mobile Operator with 5 Mln Clients
- Template-based generation of customer invoices.
- Designing custom invoice templates and adding marketing materials to invoices.
- Invoice e-signing.
- Automated invoice submission to clients via email.
Customer’s benefit: Faster invoice generation and processing, reduced time for monthly billing campaigns.
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Average costs for building the automated billing system vary between $120,000 and $400,000, depending on the solution complexity. |
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Despite the substantial investments, you can expect:
- Faster receiving of payments due to quicker invoicing and reduction of invoicing errors.
- Up to 90% manual billing-associated tasks eliminated.
- 75% reduction in subscription renewals processing time.
- 70% reduction in time Accounts Administrators spend on tracking customer payment terms.
- Up to 10% monthly revenue recovered with dunning management.
- Improved customer satisfaction due to the simplified payment process and self-service options.
When a Custom Automated Billing System is the Best Choice
We recommend developing the custom automated billing system in the following cases:
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You need a modifiable automated billing solution that allows easy functionality extension when needed. For example, in our project for a leading European online marketplace, we developed a custom billing solution that can easily adopt new features due to layered architecture, clear separation of concerns (SoC), and standard APIs. |
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You need automated billing software to cover your specific business requirements, such as enabling non-linear invoicing workflows, custom calculations, creating custom triggers connected to specific events, or managing specific payments in highly regulated industries (e.g., healthcare, insurance, public sector). |
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A ready-made automated billing solution needs costly and effort-consuming customization to connect with your existing business-critical software (e.g., ERP, CRM, accounting system). |
Implementation of the Automated Billing System with ScienceSoft
In custom financial software development since 2007, ScienceSoft helps companies create robust automated billing systems to streamline payment processing.
Automated billing system consulting
- Analysis of business and user needs for billing automation.
- Assessment of the existing billing and payment processing tools and their integration points (if any).
- Outlining optimal billing automation system features, architecture, tech stack.
- Preparing an integration plan (with ERP, CRM, accounting software, etc.).
- Project cost & time estimates, expected ROI calculation.
Automated billing system implementation
- Billing automation needs analysis.
- Automated billing system conceptualization.
- Automated billing system architecture design.
- Automated billing system development and QA.
- Automated billing system integration into the existing infrastructure (ERP, CRM, accounting software, etc.).
- User training.
- After-launch support
- Continuous support and evolution (if required).
What our Customers say
The invoicing system created by ScienceSoft automates data integration from different sources, invoice generation, and provides visibility into the invoicing process. We have already engaged ScienceSoft in supporting the solution and would definitely consider ScienceSoft as an IT vendor in the future.
Heather Owen Nigl, Chief Financial Officer, Alta Resources
About ScienceSoft
ScienceSoft is a global IT consulting and software development company headquartered in McKinney, Texas. We provide consultancy and development services to help businesses build reliable billing software tailored to their billing and payment processing needs. Being ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certified, we apply a mature quality management system and guarantee cooperation with us does not pose any risks to our customers’ data security. If you are interested in developing an effective billing system, feel free to check ScienceSoft’s offer on automated billing system development.