Our client has a subscription website. Every month, they would process subscriptions. This task was done manually. First, the client would establish who was due for renewal, then they would work out what period each customer needed to be renewed for. Finally the client would modify invoices that were generated automatically to reflect the dates that the subscription was for. While the client tried to make recurring transactions work, it just wasn't suitable for this particular task. We reviewed the billing procedure, and created a small application that generated invoices in Saasu with the specific dates and billing periods required.

Too many manual look ups slowed things down
The primary problem was that the client needed to refer to many different sources to obtain enough information to generate each invoice, and this slowed things down considerably. Because the task was particularly time unfriendly, it was always put off, resulting in an unpredictable billing cycle for their customers.

Automating the gathering of information and invoice generation
We created a small database that stored the information that needed to be collected. Once the details of a subscriber is entered, they do not change unless the subscriber changes their billing preferences, or subscription type. Then we created a small script that generated invoices based on the information stored in the database. Using Saasu's API, we were able to generate these invoices directly into Saasu.

360 times faster now with automation
Because we removed the need for any manual action to generate an invoice, we were able to dramatically reduce the time required to generate invoices. The billing process is 360 times faster now, and is 96% cheaper. Also, because the task has been completely automated, it can be run on a scheduled period.

Billing doesn't need to be put off now, because no effort is required. The time put into generating invoices can now be put to use elsewhere in the business.