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Work 365 Payment and Invoice Integration for CSP Automated Billing

When it comes to billing, invoicing and payment collection, there’s much more involved than just sending out an invoice.

One of the main challenges of a cloud solution provider within the Microsoft CSP Program is to either create or find solutions that will standardize the invoicing and payment collection process to help scale their business.

To scale the business service providers, must tackle several tasks seamlessly:

Provision and bundle services and offerings

Pro-rate based on usage and providing usage metrics

Invoices Creation

Delivery of Invoices

Payment Collection

For many IT services companies including Microsoft partners, billing reconciliation and payment collection is a manual task that can take upwards of 10 hours a month for just 15 recurring customer invoices.  This effort grows significantly based on the volume and types of services provided.

There is coordination between the accounting, sales and operations teams to collect all the data necessary to just generate invoices accurately. Not only does it take a lot of time and is error-prone, but this also requires using several different systems to complete tasks.

Streamlined Accounting Process

Work 365 tackles these issues by becoming the all-in-one service option for cloud providers and partners. For whoever looking to scale their business and automate the sales and billing systems to deliver better service, with accurate invoices on time every single time.

Work 365 can integrate with Accounting systems like QuickBooks, Xero and Business Central as well as payment gateways to directly accept payments from automatically generated invoices.

Deep Dive: Work 365 Integration with QuickBooks Online

Work 365 invoices are automatically generated. The invoices can then be Auto-Synced into your accounting system or synced using a one-click function with Work 365.

In case, if there are multiple companies or accounting systems synchronized with CRM, Work 365 system allows the configuration and setup for more than one accounting systems.

The invoice is synced to QuickBooks automatically or with a single click and all the details along with product information, pricing and descriptions are all passed over to the accounting system.

The invoice line items reflect the Work 365 automatic license proration for previous mid-term license changes, as well as the full upcoming billing cycle.

The cash can be applied to the QuickBooks invoice and the status will update automatically in Work 365. These invoices can also be visible through the Work 365 Self-Service portal.

With these integrations, Work 365 allows users to collect payments and sync any invoice, any product, service or subscription within the system.

Learn how to charge invoices and collect payments using the invoice and payment integrations in Work 365 2.0.

Check out our customer case studies to learn more about the problems our CSP customers faced.

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Accounting Systems vs Billing Systems: What’s the difference for Cloud Solution Providers?

As a Microsoft Partner and CSP, a requirement is to have billing automation and accounting systems in place to keep a record of transactions and send out invoices. While the line between the two different systems has blurred in recent years, billing automation and accounting systems still serve two different purposes and require a software decision.

Today, we’ll review the differences between billing automation and account systems in order to help cloud businesses build efficiency.

The Differences Between Accounting And Billing Systems

Accounting Systems

An accounting system like Quickbooks, NetSuite, Xero, or Freshbooks, is meant to document and classify all of a business’s financial transactions. It is most commonly used to show the following data:

Money that comes in and goes out of the business

Total revenue

Total profit

Company budgets and expenses

Accounts payable and receivable

Most accounting systems allow users to create manual invoices, which can handle the needs of the typical smaller business. However, a cloud service provider bases its billing and invoicing on more complex information such as customer provisioning, pro-ration, license tiers, and discounts.

While this information can be manually compiled, doing so consumes significant time that could be better spent elsewhere in your business. That’s where a billing automation system comes in.

Billing Systems

A billing system automates much of the manual work required to create an accurate invoice. Billing systems typically track the following:

Actual product/service usage

Client provisioning

Discounts

Payment Plans

Subscription tiers

Customized services and pricing

Tax levies

Billing automation systems then automatically generate customer invoices, either directly or through integration with an accounting system. This process delivers a more efficient way of invoicing customers.

Why CSPs Should Use An Automated Billing System?

Automated billing systems like Work 365 help CSPs send and track more accurate invoices to they get paid more quickly with less effort. When integrated with an accounting system, Work 365 can help businesses:

Streamline processes by unifying all data collection and tracking into a fully integrated front to back system.

Save time by allowing the creation of things like payment plans, auto-pay services, tax calculations, and automated invoicing and payment reminders that are action triggered and not manual.

Offer better service self-service portals allow customers to view their balance, understand their charges, and pay on their own. This lets your business focus its resources on improving support rather than reconciling accounts

Make fewer mistakes in automated services decrease manual actions that lead to errors.

See how Work 365 can improve the accounting and billing systems for your cloud solution provider business with a demo.

Reference :  Accounting Systems vs Billing Systems: What’s the difference for Cloud Solution Providers?

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Work 365 now provides automated provisioning for Microsoft Indirect Partners that are using Synnex as their Distributor

Microsoft Gold Partner IOTAP, an IT consulting and Dynamics 365 Independent Software Vendor, today announced that its Work 365 cloud business automation application will now facilitate automated provisioning for Microsoft Indirect Partners via new integration with business-to-business IT services distributor Synnex.

Work 365 is built on Dynamics 365 for Sales and is completely integrated with the Microsoft Partner Center allowing Direct partners to directly provision, view invoices, reconcile invoices and Bill for Usage-based services through Microsoft Partner Center. Now Work 365’s integration with Synnex allows Microsoft Indirect Partners to use Synnex’s APIs to receive similar capabilities in provisioning services as its core offering for Microsoft Direct Partners.

Under the latest changes to the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider program, qualifying to be a Direct Partner requires cloud billing infrastructure and automated provisioning capabilities, as well as a paid support plan and the ability to provide the first level of cloud support. Partners who don’t want to or can’t take on the requirements of a Direct Partner but still want to grow their cloud business can now use Work 365 to automate and provision their services, using Synnex as the provider.

“We are excited about this integration with Synnex because of how it creates a better service offering for Indirect partners and their customers and also creates a path for some direct partners to move into using Distributors like Synnex that have API’s while still receiving the same functionality and automation to scale their business,” said Ismail Nalwala, CEO of IOTAP.

To learn more about the latest version of Work 365 as well as Work 365 Sync, visit work365apps.com.

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Cloud Automation: The No 1 factor to consider for a successful cloud business

What is cloud automation and why should you care? Well delivering all the latest cloud technologies to your end customers it’s not enough, it never was! Every cloud service provider is aware of that. Deliver them automatically, however, is another discussion.

Technology vendors nowadays, release new applications and services daily and staying up to speed with their delivery is by far the most controversial factor to consider as a cloud service provider.

Fine so far, you would say, I will struggle to deliver them but I plan to do it as I always do! It worked so far, didn’t it? Well, the answer is not as simple as you may think! That “always” usually includes, most-if not all of your sales executives and numerous people from your accounting department, to be occupied with the handling of your customers’ everyday requests and subscriptions, when they could just look after the business development of your firm. Just consider how profitable your organization would be if you had adopted a cloud automation platform and your sales department would pursue prospective onboarding customers, instead of constantly handling the existing ones?

The most critical factor to consider when you want to undergo a change like that is the investment’s cost! By cost, however, we don’t only refer to the money you would spend, but to how much your organization would have to go back to its commercial revenue targets and what kind of organizational restructure it may need to be done. Well embracing the evolution is the antidote of fearing it. Explore all the possible solutions and reevaluate your targets! Every industry leader took the necessary “risks” in order to evolve and dominate the market why not you as well?

So, let’s say that you have already set the infrastructure required for your cloud delivery what should you do next to embrace cloud automation? Well, let’s have an elaborate look on what your cloud platform should incorporate first:

Customized Storefront: Without exposing your products and services somewhere (a simple e-shop won’t do the job) they simply don’t exist, you need a single point of delivery to unify your offerings. A storefront that will give the control to your end customer, releasing you in that way from the hassle to do the management of their purchased resources, and will also have the look and feel of your brand.

Billing automation: You also need a robust billing module that would automate subscription management and would handle the invoices and the payments.

Provisioning capabilities: You would need an all-in-one solution for provisioning IaaS, SaaS, PaaS and DaaS.

Resellers’ functionality: Which will give enable your resellers to buy your services, manage them on behalf of their customers.

Acquire cloud automation platform with the work365apps, which provides all the above capabilities to its unified solution and can be deployed within weeks. Our plans can fit your needs, no matter what are the cloud services you wish to deliver while our support is with you at every step.

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Microsoft CSP Cost of Doing Business

Cloud Profitability is the obvious pursuit of the modern Microsoft partner. There are only two ways to grow your bottom line – increase your sales and keep your costs constant or reduce your costs while maintaining sales.

Microsoft CSP Partner eco-system is large and there are partners who are transactional and work with high volumes and low margins. While some partners who work with a handful of end customers with kid gloves and specialized services.

Regardless they are doing one thing consistently, which is buying a service and reselling it to their end customer.  Out of the thousands of MSPs, ISVs, VARs and SIs out there globally, the Microsoft partners will identify themselves as Microsoft partners.

For these partners being part of the Microsoft, the channel is an important part of their identity, whether they have their own services products, or sell other services and products or any combination. This huge ecosystem of companies big and small, worldwide generate revenue and service customers in countless ways.

It is rare for organizations which are selling Microsoft cloud services that the margin from their Microsoft service resale is the biggest contributor to their bottom line. Microsoft partners selling cloud services are looking to CSP as the way for them to capture or shape their financial future.

Customer Engagement:

Cloud Profitability is what the ecosystem is striving for as CSP Partners. However, to measure profitability it is important to imagine the journey and identify costs and revenue opportunities.

In the below figure I have an example of a typical customer journey. It starts with a simple interaction of a phone call, or email and the sales team are engaged, a customer is onboard, services are implemented and then after that is where we have the longest duration of engagement with the customer takes place.

This is the realization phase where we grow the services, support the customer and manage all their service needs.

Through the five phases of Discover, Evaluation, Buy, Implement and Realize, we can group these stages into three main cost categories for us to measure and manage – the Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC), the Engineering costs and then the Cost of Service(COS).

Cost of Service is where most of the opportunity to reduce costs and incur costs are faced by most partners.

This is why indirect partners negotiate different margins with distributors on who will handle the service call, and why Microsoft is requiring direct partners to purchase the paid support plan like Advanced Support for Microsoft Partners Or Premiere support.

This is where the accounting team spends their time billing and reconciling invoices. This is also the area where most partners who don’t have a system or plan will struggle to scale their operations.

Costs associated with Customer Engagement and CSP:

We listed out the cost of items to benchmark and categorize the costs under the COS phase- some of which were labor, 3rdParty costs, system costs. Some of the costs are hidden and some are in plain sight, however, each one of these affects profitability.

Credit Card Processing Charges: For recurring charges, it is just common practice to use the credit card processors and gateways through Intuit, Authorize.net or Stripe.com

Service-related Labor Charges

Monthly Accounting Functions: Generation of customer invoicing, tallying of vendor invoices from the distributors, Microsoft, and other 3rd Parties, calculating the Sales commissions and customer payment collections.

Direct Costs: As re-sellers of the service we buy the service or product and pay for it with terms.

Compliance: A lot of businesses accept credit cards, but if you are doing CSP you will need the ability to collect credit cards, and if you are using a 3rd party like Authorize.net you need to be PCI compliant.

Cost of Sales: To incentivize your sales team you need to include Sales Commissions in their Sales compensation plans.

Direct Billing Partners will now also have the Advanced Support for Microsoft (ASFP) or Premier support plans.

Provisioning processes to manage customer license change requests. Some customers will want to make these changes regularly and some will just make the changes on their renewals.

System Costs: There are a variety of tools that are deployed to support end customers.

Through Work 365, we are looking to address every item here, and would like to know what else you are seeing as costs for your recurring subscription business?

In the following articles, we will address best practices around CSP billing and services to grow margin and manage costs.

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Cloud-based AI: The game-changer not to feel anxious about

The White House is hosting a conference on the future of artificial intelligence. Executives from 38 companies, including Intel, Oracle, Ford, Boeing, Mastercard, Microsoft, and Accenture, will attend the daylong summit.

Why is it happening now? AI is poised to create 2.3 million jobs by 2020, while eliminating another 1.8 million jobs, according to Gartner. Topics of discussion are said to include how industries like health care and transportation can best use AI, as well as how to fund research in the field. And most scary on the agenda: strategies to formulate federal policies and regulations.

AI will change the world, but not as fast as people fear

Cloud computing is the catalyst. AI would not be affordable if you could not buy AI by the hour from cloud providers such as Google, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft. Moreover, AI now has zeitgeist in the public mind as something that’s going to change our lives, change our jobs, and change how we think about technology.

I’m not sure if any of the drastic AI transformations in the forecast will come to fruition over the next few years. After all, we usually consider any new technology to be a “game changer.” Even if it is, it takes years to change the game. By that time, today’s "drastic" changes often seem commonsense and ordinary.

The truth is that technology has been changing our jobs for the last 150 years, and the use of AI as a tool is not much different from the waves of automation that turned factories and farms into businesses where you pushed a button more often than you picked up tools. While I’m sure we’ll see driverless cars and trucks displace vehicle operators at some point, and businesses automate people out of jobs, most of those people will see the writing on the wall and the smart will pivot to a job that’s not likely to be automated anytime soon. They have years of warning—again, none of this happens fast.

Regulating AI is likely to do more harm than good

Now to the "regulating AI" part of this story. I’ve found that when the government tries to regulate technology innovation, it tends to introduce unintended consequences. Government officials neither are experts in the technology nor understand where the technology is going. That combination is not a recipe for success.

What happens in practice is that the laws become quickly outdated and typically create unnecessary confusion as lawyers try to figure them out—and technologists quickly figure ways to work around them.

So, short of addressing an evil genius creating a Skynet that attempts to enslave us all, why bother with regulation? Evil-genius plots are nice for movies, but they don’t happen in real life.

Source : https://www.infoworld.com/article/3273885/cloud-computing/cloud-based-ai-the-game-changer-not-to-fret-about.html

Also visit our Microsoft CSP Automation Platform

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Latest CSP Billing Changes and What they Means ?

Did you know that Microsoft is changing its requirements for all Direct CSP Partners? As of August 31, to be part of the program partners will have to pay $15,000 a year in support fees.

New Billing Alignment Starting December 1, 2017

What Do These Changes Mean for You?

Following are frequently asked questions on how these changes may impact SherWeb partners and their customers:

Will the way I pay my bill change?

No, you will still receive your monthly invoice via SherWeb’s billing platform, Cumulus.

Will the date I pay my bill change?

No, the date you pay your bill will not change.

Will these changes affect my end customers?

This depends whether you previously charged the customer for the ‘grace period’ or not. If you did, there will be no change. If you did not, you will now need to charge them.

Will the amount I am billed change each month?

No. You will be charged for every day of usage.

Are the changes optional or mandatory?

This is a mandatory change.

Do partners need to do anything when the new process begins?

No, these changes will be made automatically.

Will these changes affect the way I offer free demos to my customers?

Yes, you will no longer be able to offer the ‘grace period’ as a free trial to your end customers. However, if you are a Microsoft partner and have an MPN ID, check out their demo page and from here you will be able to showcase all the possibilities.

In addition to the billing changes, we will also be releasing an annual commitment plan, which will allow you to lock the price for 12 months.

For more info about Microsoft CSP Billing Software, Visit – Work365Apps

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Guide to Microsoft Dynamics and GDPR

As the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enforcements come into effect now, it is a great opportunity to reinforce our commitment to privacy and list the resources we have available for our customers and business partners.

Privacy is a fundamental human right, and each individual must be in control of their data.

Important Resources

This is just the starting point for a new era of individual data protection and privacy. To help ensure your business is a trusted steward of customer data, we offer a robust set of tools:

Dynamics Data Subject Request (DSR) portal enables you to fulfill GDPR requests. Data Subject Request capability is generally available today through the Service Trust Portal.  These capabilities allow customers to respond to requests to access, rectify, delete, and export personal data in the cloud.

Learn more: Dynamics Data Subject Requests for the GDPR

Compliance Manager for Dynamics 365 helps you assess and manage GDPR compliance. Compliance Manager is a free, cross-Microsoft cloud services solution designed to help organizations meet complex compliance obligations, including the GDPR, ISO 27001, ISO 27018, and NIST 800-53. Generally available today with GDPR support for Dynamics customers, Compliance Manager’s GDPR dashboard enables you to assign, track, and record your GDPR compliance activities so you can collaborate across teams and manage your documents for creating audit reports more easily.

Learn more: Use Compliance Manager to help meet data protection and regulatory requirements

Dynamics GDPR support and guidance helps you stay compliant. Our GDPR sites on the Service Trust Portal and the Trust Center provide you with current information about Microsoft services that support the requirements of the GDPR. These include detailed guidance on conducting Data Protection Impact Assessments, fulfilling DSRs, and managing Data Breach Notification for you to incorporate into your own GDPR accountability program.

Learn more: Get started: Support for GDPR accountability

Learn more: Dynamics helps enable data privacy for GDPR compliance

Other resources to increase your knowledge of GDPR. These resources help you get a clear understanding of GDPR requirements for business applications, and explore a four-stage model—Discover, Manage, Protect, and Report-to comply with the GDPR.   Also, hear from Microsoft about how we support GDPR and how we are helping our Dynamics customers to support their GDPR requirements.

Learn more: Dynamics GDPR whitepapers

Learn more: Blogs

Learn more: eBooks

Work 365 is a customer experience platform built on Microsoft dynamics 365 which helps Business Automation for Microsoft CSPs Partners.