Commerce, Billing & Finance to Power Subscription Businesses
3.9/5 (31 reviews)Zuora’s Z-Business enables subscription companies across multiple industries grow revenues and scale by rapidly bringing new services to market without being held back by operational constraints.
Z-Business is used by over 800 customers across diverse industries such as SaaS, Cloud, Media, Communications, Healthcare, Education and more. From start ups that made it big like Box and Docusign, to large enterprises like Dell and HP that are embracing new subscription based revenue models, Z-Business enables subscription businesses to acquire customers, increase cash flow and minimize churn.
With Z-Business, companies can adopt creative pricing and packaging strategies to gain more market share, manage high volume self service sales as well as high value assisted sales, automate billing and payment operations, streamline accounting close and revenue recognition processes and gain insights into key subscription metrics. All on a unified cloud solution that maintains the highest standards of security and compliance.
Pros
as long as you stay within what the product does out of the box it functions very well for a billing platform. It functions best in a transnational environment but was improving for service oriented billing. It does a good job with making history and audit trails available. Pushing usage data is surprising well handled as is issuing refunds and credits. They also take care of all credit card handling making it one less iso hurdle to clear for a company.
Cons
Customizing this is not an easy task, the API's and the object model behind the scense is not easy to deal with and still kinda buggy. Depending on your charge model, it may be a real pain to implement within the system, for example they allow for tiered pricing but flexibility for setting up plateaued prices and such requires a LOT of initial setup. Recognizing split revenue is also a hassle when outputing to finance software (think a support charge attached to a licensed monthy cloud service). To their credit when I left the position where I was working with them they were getting better so it's possible they are in the process of closing some of these gaps. One last thing is that there is no production matching sandbox, they can refresh a sandbox for a certain snapshot in time (for a price) but in an enterprise environment that is stale moments later plus their sandboxes for some reason have slight implementation differences that come to light when leveraging the API heavily.
Pros
Zuora can do pretty much anything. It has a lot of capabilities when it comes to billing, invoicing, dealing with international currencies, etc. But you definitely have to think in advance about how you *want* to do billing, e.g. is it a per transaction model, a per month model, a per minute model, what happens if there are overages etc. Zuora will let you get as complicated as you want. And sometimes that's too complicated.
Cons
Implementation is non-trivial. It's not like buying an off-the-shelf solution that's plug and play. You have to customize it and you'll need an implementation team. Even if you use Zuora to do the implementation, you need an internal IT-savvy person to lead the project, make decisions and make sure it all makes sense. Zuora can do anything, but you have to decide what it should do in company.
Pros
It's easy to create reports. Data Source contains most of the objects to create complex reports. When a request is sent to the support team, it is responded in short time. There is plenty of information in the community website.
Cons
I have to create amendments as many as product I need to add or remove. I have to wait 1 min for a bill run to create an invoice. The UI could be more modern. The search engine needs improvement. It takes at least 2 minutes to find a paymet using the payment number.
My overall experience was great! Once we were up and running I had few questions and the questions I did have were answered quickly and efficiently.
Pros
My first job out of college was a start-up technology company. They had just purchased Zuora and it was my job to implement it. It was a seamless and great experience. The system is intuitive and easy to use despite our implementation specialist (who is no longer there). I was able to teach myself a good amount and use the product daily.
Cons
The reports provided were not exactly what I needed so I was left to create many manual reports. I still obtained the information I needed, but it too longer.
Pros
Z-billing offers a lot of ways to amend a customer's subscriptions based on their needs, such as turning off auto-renew, adding and removing products to the subscription, and change the price . Zuora also integrates with SalesForce so quotes can be made in SalesForce and will automatically create subscription within Zuora. They have an incredible interactive learning center that will show you step-by-step on how to create, amend, and cancel subscriptions.
Cons
Because of its robustness, it does take time to learn all the functionality of the software.
https://www.zuora.com/what-is-zuora/editions/
With Z-Business you can:
-Increase revenue through high volume B2C channels and negotiated B2B sales, all while still maintaining maximum pricing flexibility
-Easily handle the impact of add-ons, upgrades, renewals, and cancellations, as well as accommodate multiple currencies and taxation without burdening your billing and finance operations.
-Quickly summarize month-end billing, cash and revenue numbers, gain insights into key subscription metrics, and the financial controls to support compliance and auditability.
Zuora is a cloud-based subscription management system that spans across commerce, billing, and finance. With Z-Business, strategies implemented by the Sales and Marketing department don’t negatively impact activities in other departments, specifically Billing and Finance, because all facets of the subscription management lifecycle stay in sync.
Some of Zuora’s modules include Z-Commerce, Z-Billing, Z-Finance, Zuora for Salesforce and its support system.
Zuora is a relationship business management solution that takes care of the entire subscription management lifecycle, from sales and marketing initiatives to billing and finance. Zuora’s unified user interface allows organizations to easily manage complicated billing and finance operations despite rapidly changing pricing strategies to increase the company’s customer base.
Zuora gives businesses the freedom to create unique billing cycles, and with its ready-made integration with Salesforce.com, it has become the billing platform of choice for many subscription organizations.
Z-Commerce is a Zuora application that covers product marketing and sales. Most legacy billing and financial systems push back on creative discounts, primarily because any change in subscription pricing can severely impact the way billing and finance officers do their jobs. If the company plans to expand its operations overseas, multicurrency pricing and global taxation become additional challenges. With Z-Commerce, pricing and packaging iterations are quick (and don’t require IT), so you can tailor your offerings to customers.
Z-Commerce also affords the sales and marketing department the freedom to get creative with pricing packaging (one-time charges, recurring charges, pay as you go, overage pricing, discounts, promos and free trials, among others) to attract new customers, with the finance and billing departments not needing a considerable amount of time to revisit their operational strategies to keep up with the pricing changes. This is because all features of the Z-Business system remain in sync. Also, with Z-Commerce, engagement with customers can be done via the web, a mobile device, a sales rep, or all of the above.
An offering within Z-Commerce is Zuora for Salesforce, which includes functionality that brings all aspects of the subscription commerce lifecycle to Salesforce.com. Zuora for Salesforce allows the sales team to use the Zuora product catalog to generate quotes in Salesforce, make processing upgrades, downgrades and renewals while staying in sync with Z-Finance and Z-Billing.
With Zuora for Salesforce, the account and sales management departments have real-time subscriber information at their fingertips, including all subscription transactions and impacted metrics.
Z-Billing gives billing professionals a centralized hub to manage all accounts receivable operations, which can include adjustments, refunds and credits. It is also where they can easily schedule payment and billing activities, and automatically send customers email notifications on events like payment collection failures, credit card expiration, past due invoices, renewal reminders, and the like.
Z-Billing identifies timing, proration, frequency, revenue and taxation rules linked to any charges, while ensuring that key finance and billing operations run as expected no matter how innovative the product marketing team gets with pricing. Branded invoice templates can be created, charges for multiple customers can be consolidated in a single invoice, and payments can be accepted via ACH (Automated Clearing House), direct debit, bank transfers, and checks. And regardless of the company’s growth strategies, Z-Billing ensures you have the data you need to see how much was billed and collected, and how much is still outstanding.
Aside from a clear insight into the health of the business through critical subscription metrics, Z-Finance streamlines and accelerates accounting and revenue close processes so that finance managers no longer drown in spreadsheets to manage revenue recognition, take weeks to close books, or implement new finance guidelines to understand how the business is faring.
Z-Finance makes finance activities tied to business expansion easier to accomplish, whether that’s expanding into new territories or taking the company public. Revenue schedules are automatically generated for subscription charges. Subscription metrics can be freely analyzed, like churn, MRR (monthly recurring revenue) and TCV (total contract value).
Zuora’s global support system employs varied ways to assist its customers. Aside from Zuora University, a self-help knowledge base, it offers a community forum that’s subdivided into location-based user groups, and a site section containing partner announcements and implementation best practices.
With just a click, you can already submit an assistance request and check the status of your existing requests. You can also get in touch with Zuora support via phone, chat and email.
Zuora is built to readily integrate with various applications like [Salesforce] (http://www.getapp.com/salesforce-application) for CRM; NetSuite, QuickBooks, and Workday for accounting; [GoodData] (http://www.getapp.com/gooddata-application), Scout Analytics and SaaSOptics for analytics; Chase Paymentech, CyberSource and Moneris for payment administration; and Vertex and [Avalara] (http://www.getapp.com/avatax-application-1) for tax management. For other integrations, Zuora also provides both SOAP and REST APIs.
Zuora’s pricing scheme depends on your company’s size and scale, and offers multiple subscription packages. After the free trial, you have the option to choose a Growth, Enterprise, or Nine package.
Below are some frequently asked questions for Zuora.
Zuora offers the following pricing plans:
Pricing model: Freemium, Subscription
Free Trial: Available
https://www.zuora.com/what-is-zuora/editions/
Zuora offers the following features:
Zuora has the following typical customers:
Large Enterprises, Mid Size Business, Non Profits, Public Administrations
Zuora supports the following languages:
English
Zuora has the following pricing plans:
Freemium, Subscription
We do not have any information about what devices Zuora supports
Zuora integrates with the following applications:
Abiquo, Amity, Bitium, Domo, HireMojo, Mule ESB, Sage Intacct, Subscription Billing, Vocalcom, Workato
We do not have any information about what support options Zuora has
