Manage subscriptions in a project

Streamlining financial processes between outright ownership and subscription success in your projects

Moving your business towards a recurring revenue model can be challenging especially if your core services are managed as projects.

If you’ve traditionally sold your products or services outright, it can be difficult to navigate the pitfalls of trading ownership for experience. Managing subscriptions as part of your project delivery can seem daunting: How do I easily distinguish outright from subscription services or items in my project quotation? How do I ensure that these subscriptions are activated at the right time during project delivery? How do I manage and track subscriptions as part of my project budget?

To navigate these challenges, we explore 3 key financial areas in the project module of Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain that can streamline the process between outright ownership and subscription success.

Project Quotations

Projects within Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply chain are utilised across many industries including manufacturing, construction, legal, consulting and accounting. Some companies also use to drive marketing and advertising projects and deliverables. Many businesses leverage project quotations, which you can use to make an attractive offer to a customer as the first step of the project phase. A project quotation might include the items and services that are quoted, basic contact information, special trade agreements and discounts, and possible taxes and surcharges. It is here where you can easily add your subscription products or services from the start to the WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) and start to effectively manage the potential subscription in one seamless experience.

Project Initiation

Many organisations struggle with initiating their projects. This is due to the administrative effort required to identify the subscriptions for activation from the overall project. Ideally these subscription items or services should easily be converted into the subscription agreement with the customer, adhering to the project timelines as defined in the WBS.

Invoicing Project Subscriptions

Project billing is often a topic which causes many headaches. Depending on the project WBS there could milestones for invoicing as well as recurring subscription charges. Once the subscription agreement has been activated, from here the Project Sales Orders (and related Purchase Orders) should be automatically generated and posted, reducing the administrative overhead and revenue leaks of managing project financials.

In order to ramp-up your subscription business, adequately planning your subscription road map provides you with the blueprint you need to define key factors that will play a large role in your success as a subscription-based business. When you consider a technology road map for your subscription model, you need to focus on customer billing, the complexities of your subscription and the related financials with your business strategy in mind.

Contact us here for a meaningful discussion about supportive technologies that drive subscription success.