Over the years we have supported a wide range of customers with their differing billing requirements. Here is another recent example of how we can support M2M billing:
Inform Billing support CSL with M2M requirements
When CSL, now a leading international Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications provider, wanted to expand their offering from alarm control panels to connectivity and supplying M2M solutions to other manufacturers, they turned to Inform Billing for help.
David Doble, Finance Director at CSL says: “We were invoicing 170k SIMs through the Sage billing module; it was unsupported and ‘fell over’ all the time. Our business demanded a more efficient system and after looking at two or three others, we were impressed with the flexibility and scalability that Inform Billing offered. Implementing Eclipse firstly automated our processes and secondly provided a direct interface with our online ordering system and accounts package, enabling us to seamlessly process more orders.
“Inform Billing has supported our diversification into the UK healthcare market, as well as expansion into security and healthcare in Europe, enabling us to also bill in multiple currencies. We have an inordinate number of quirks and idiosyncrasies in our billing, but Eclipse deals with them and allows us to automate our monthly billing, as well as all annual renewals, invoicing the same customers for more and more devices. With Eclipse all of our SIMs get billed, without problems, at the correct price.”
Darren Salisbury, Director at Inform Billing says: “Across the group CSL has very bespoke needs and although the Eclipse billing software has a great deal of functionality, there were many nuances and complexities that had to be built into the system. For example there were cases where customers would pay an initial fee, but then nothing else for the first 12 months, and then make monthly payments for a period of time with a prefixed end date.
“There were a vast number of bespoke pricing structures that not only exist at primary account level, but were also linked to third party ordering companies which overrode the standard pricing. Using our price list and package structures and with some additional custom modifications we were able to meet all end customer requirements.
“We provided consultative support to dig beneath the surface and ensure that the system did exactly what it was needed to. We also took the weight off their shoulders by managing each phase through to completion.”
David concludes: “We deal with a number of large telcos and they all seem to struggle with billing whilst Eclipse takes data from over 400k SIMs and copes admirably. M2M is set to become a much bigger part of our business as we look to double our SIM base in the next three years and Eclipse will underpin that growth.”
