Is it Time to Breakup with your Billing System?

Breakup Letter to Your Billing System

With Valentine’s Day approaching, it is a time of year that many people reflect upon their relationships and re-evaluate them. At Ordway, we talk to hundreds of finance, accounting, and operations leaders every month and most of them are in a unsatisfying relationship with their billing system. In fact, we’ve yet to speak to anyone who said they loved their billing system.

If you are contemplating a change this Valentines Day we put together this breakup letter you can send to your billing system. Even if you aren’t planning a change, you may want to read the letter, because it is a ton of pun.

Dear Billing System –

As Valentine’s Day approaches, I’ve been reflecting upon our relationship and I’ve come to the decision that it’s time to close the books on our relationship. I can see the numbers crunching in your head already, trying to determine how to prorate in a month with only 28 days. I can only imagine how you would behave if this were a leap year.

But before you make a statement, I’d ask you to stop trying to read between the line-items and hear what I am trying to say about why you no longer fit the bill.

Poor Communicator

First, you are not a good communicator. Month after month it’s the same recurring set of messages. “Statement posted.” “Transaction successful.” “Two, ten, net thirty.” Who talks like that? I’m so tired of your dunning.

The only time I feel like you truly want to communicate with me is when an expiration date is approaching. Sometimes I have to turn off auto-pay, just to get a different response out of you.

Insensitive

Second of all you’re insensitive. I keep telling you what I am looking for, but you turn around and change my ISOs into DSOs. It’s like you only care about how much you’re bringing in with no real thought to how much you are dolling out.

And you’re not much of a storyteller. Whenever you start on one of your accounts it always about aging. You treat anything older than 30 days like a bunch of delinquents. Sometimes I wish you would give a little more credit.

Feeling Used

I had high hopes that shifting from a traditional subscription to more of a usage-based arrangement would correct our imbalance. I’d be the “p” and you’d be the “q “and a multiplier effect would emerge. Together, p x q, we’d be unstoppable.

But things have gotten worse. You’re obsessed with consumption – metering every word – and incessantly trying to monetize every action. Before we met, people told me you were good at usage, but I’ve found you to be highly over-rated.

Fear of Commitments

I also feel like you are afraid of long-term commitments. You can crunch through dozens of monthly plan invoices in less than an hour. But you throw up whenever I bring you an annual contract.

Sometimes I try to get you to step up and change things mid-contract, but you can’t seem to do it. I bring you prepaid usage and you are afraid to drawdown. I share big-time spend commitments and you can never true up. Some months I am just looking for a minimum and all you can think about is overages.

Final Statement

Before you make a final statement, I want to thank you for all the late night billing runs you’ve churned through over the years. And I’m sorry our relationship had to end in a contraction and wish we could renew, but I just can’t.