Subscription Management Software

Billing is at the core of the accounts receivable function in every business. It’s about more than just accepting payments from your customers—the payments help you forecast your cash flow for the next financial year. The higher your cash flow, the more number of products and services you can offer customers and boost your organization’s productivity.

To increase revenue from customers, you can choose between pricing options such as subscription-based pricing or bulk payment processing. In subscription-based pricing, customers pay the bills in recurring intervals. But with so many payments to manage on a recurring basis, it’s easy to miss out one. 

In such situations, recurring billing and subscription management software comes in handy as it automates the management of subscription-based payments. This guide will help you understand this software and how it can benefit your business.

We have covered the following topics: 

• What is recurring and subscription billing management software?

• What are the deployment options for recurring and subscription billing management software?

• What are the common features of recurring and subscription billing management software?

What is recurring and subscription billing management software?

Recurring billing and subscription management software is a tool that businesses use to bill customers at recurring intervals for a specific amount via a payment portal.

In other words, rather than making a single bulk payment, the software allows customers to breakdown their payments into multiple smaller amounts. This is how it works—customers enroll themselves for recurring payments by choosing a specific type of payment, such as a credit card, for billing. Once they register their billing details, they become subscribers.

For instance, Netflix uses recurring and subscription billing management software to automate payments from its customers every month.

What are the deployment options for recurring and subscription billing management software?

Once you understand the benefits of using recurring and subscription management software, the next step is to determine how to deploy the software.

In this section, we discuss two major deployment options—cloud and on-premise. Here are the details about these options:

• Cloud-based deployment: The software is hosted on the vendor or a third-party’s remote servers. This way, multiple users can access the application in real time on their desktops, smartphones, and tablets. This option doesn’t require additional hardware or full-time IT support, which makes it ideal for businesses with limited IT budgets.

• On-premise deployment: In this option, the software is installed locally on the company’s own server, hence, it’s on premise. Vendors offer a single-user license agreement, which allows users to access the application from a single device. You may need to purchase additional hardware or hire IT staff to configure the tool, which increases the total cost of ownership for this software.

At GetApp, we recommend Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or cloud-based software for small businesses. SaaS tools are accessible on multiple platforms, such as a web browser and mobile, and are more cost effective than on-premise software because you don’t require additional hardware.

Key questions to ask your vendor before you buy: What are the pricing plans you offer for each deployment option?

What are the common features of recurring and subscription billing management software?

After considering the deployment options, evaluate the common recurring and subscription billing software features you need. Understanding these features is crucial to ensure that you have purchased the right tool, as per your budget and requirements.

Here are the most common features of recurring and subscription billing management software:

Billing and invoicing management: Works as a central repository for storing bills and invoices from customers and vendors. Once bills and invoices are uploaded to your database—after scanning or emailing the bills—users get a full assessment of the pending bill payments.

Billing and invoice management dashboard in Chargebee 

Payment processing: Allows customers to choose the type of payments for their subscriptions. It deducts the amount every month, week, quarter, or specified time period. Most payment portals accept credit card payments, and they may offer additional payment methods as well, such as gift cards or ACH transfers.

Payment processing in Square Point of Sale

Subscription management: Manages the number of customers that subscribe to your products and services. This feature includes a dashboard that shows the trends in your current subscription rates, with the help of visual elements such as bar graphs and pie charts.

Subscription management dashboard in Zoho Subscriptions

Key questions to ask your vendor before you buy: What core features does your recurring and subscription billing management software offer?

Note: The applications selected in this article are examples to show a feature in context, and are not intended as endorsements or recommendations, obtained from sources believed to be reliable at the time of publication.

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