A common pitfall when implementing a new billing system is overlooking the processes that support the old system. Many business processes develop over time to compensate for the limitations of a legacy billing system. A faulty assumption is that the new billing system needs to do exactly what the old system did. In truth, a new system means new capabilities, user interfaces, and opportunities to rethink processes and productivity.

Think about tasks and processes associated with billing and invoicing—either by person/group or by specific day in the month—and consider how to optimize them using the capabilities of a new system. Can you delegate the ownership of groups of clients to create more productive employees? Can you delegate whole processes to specific team members? Can you eliminate manual processes?

A well-configured billing system can help complete or automate tasks earlier in the process and avoid bottlenecks that occur during month-end. Identify activities that can shift to earlier in the workflow or be automated with alerts and triggers. Often, legacy billing processes result in the billing team owning more tasks than they should. This is also the time to examine the proper placement of function in the organization. Evaluate the assignment of tasks and reassign them to other parts of the organization where possible. This will lead to better employee productivity and faster month-end close.