Integrations are a major, often overlooked source of inefficiency. Billing systems must integrate with critical external and internal systems—ERP, CRM, taxation, payment systems, data lakes—yet companies rarely consider the data architecture and flow amongst these systems when assessing their billing systems.

Suspected billing issues can arise from broken integrations, inefficient or inaccurate data flow, data mapping problems (such as products and clients), customer contract data, and more. These issues may have little, if anything, to do with the billing system. As a result, employees often resort to workarounds, creating personal tools or processes to simply get their jobs done. These behaviors introduce more risk and complexity and can hinder further business growth. Understanding an accurate and precise “current state” of technology, processes, and data flow is critical to avoiding billing regret.

At RESPEC, we recommend creating and regularly reviewing maps of the system and data flow between components. Clarifying the integrations to and from the billing system, how they are used, and how they are updated and evolve will reduce errors and improve long-term performance.