Quote-to-Revenue also called as Quote-to-Cash is an important process for Subscription Monetization. Below are the steps of the typical Quote to Cash process which supports Subscription Lifecycle of different businesses:

      
 1. Product Configuration: According to the Business, products with the attributes are defined.

 2. Pricing: In this step, sales and finance teams sets up the rate plan of the product.

 3. Quoting: This is to generate accurate quotes for potential customers by CPQ system.

 4. Contract Management: Once the quote is accepted, the contract is negotiated and created in CLM system.

 5. Order Fulfilment: Order execution is initiated in CRM system. Order is synchronized to billing and fulfilment systems and delivered.

 6. Billing:Invoice is generated and delivered to customers and payments are collected.

 7. Revenue Recognition:In this step, Businesses recognise the revenue according to accounting standards.

 8. Renewal: The final step is managing customer retention and subscription renewal for recurring revenue.

The following diagram depicts some of the common Subscription Management Scenarios:

      


Below are few important features of different modules supported in Oracle BRM OOB or with customization:

Module	Capabilities and Scenarios
Pricing and Bundling	Configure rates for Recurring, Usage, One time charges Tiered Pricing: Configuration of pricing tiers based on usage volume or other criteria Usage rates based on date and time e.g. Peak & Off-peak rates Bundle different services together with more discounts compared to single product More Discounts for initial Subscription Term, Renewal with no discounts Configure Bundle with trial period giving 100% discount Discounting Type: Percentage or Flat discounts
Customer & Subscription Management	Subscription Mgmt. usecases: Purchase, Cancel, Upgrade/Downgrade, Trial, Renewal, Resubscribe Account Hierarchy support: Typically 2 level - Billing and Service account
Rating Models	Align Charges: Align product charges with BDOM (Billing Day of Month) Apply charges based on product purchase date Co-terminate Add-on Products with Base products Charge for one month in advance Charge for entire contract period in advance Proration: Apply prorated charges for Amendments Proration for Cancelation
Billing	Billing Types: Billnow, Regular, Corrective, Trial Billing Billing Frequency: Monthly ,Quarterly, Annual Billing Align Quarterly Billing with Customer Fiscal Quarter Taxation: Event time or Bill time. Integrating BRM with third party tax engine Invoicing: Invoice payload generated in BRM and third party system to create invoice PDFs from template Payment/AR: Integrating BRM with Payment Gateway for payment/refund for different pay types like cc,dd
Collections	Configure Collection Rules as collection scenarios. Different rules for different customer segments Integrate collection actions initiated in Billing with Provisioning to take appropriate action in Activation system Promise to Pay feature to defer collection actions for few days.
General Ledger (GL) Reporting	Oracle BRM recognizes different revenue types for revenue recognition. e.g. Billed Earned, Billed Unearned, Unbilled etc. To report general ledger data consistently, we run G/L reports on a daily basis to take into account the revenue
Notification	Renewal Notification Price Increase Notification Credit threshold Notification by Balance Monitoring

Below are the modules of any Billing application:

      
 1. Pricing: Product catalog needs to configured as the first step for rating/billing any product/service.

 2. Customer/Subscription Management: Accounts are created with the subscription offering purchased during order fulfilment. Subscription undergoes lifecycle changes like change plan, suspend-resume, cancel etc.

 3. Rating: For services with usage charging, events are rated based on different event attributes like volume, duration etc. Recurring charges are also applied by this module based on product cadence/frequecy.

 4. Billing & Invoicing: Customer is billed on the billing Day of Month. Invoice is generated and send based on customer preferred notification method.

 5. Payment & Adjustments: After billing, payments are posted automatically if customer payment method is electronic. Otherwise customer initiats payment through different channels.

 6. Collections/Dunning: For outstanding bills post due date, collection activities are initiated by system. System follows the Business rules configured for collections.

 7. Accounting/Journaling: Revenue Recognition is done based on the Journal Run. Reports are generated based on different revenue types like Earned/Unearned revenue.

 8. Integrations with upstream/downstream: Billing system integrates with CRM (upstream) for any subscription/account related changes. Also reports are send to ERP (downstream) systems from Billing.

The following diagram highlights the 5-step model of Revenue Recognition in ASC 606:

      


Revenue Recognition and reporting is one of the most important process which explains the Financial health of a company. This helps analysts and investors access the company's peformance over a certain period. In order to standardize processes around revenue recognition, a five-step framework for recognizing revenue is relevant under both GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) and IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards).

The GAAP core principle for revenue recognition is that companies should recognize revenue when the revenue is "earned" i.e. goods or services are transferred to customers. This is implemented through a five-step process:
1. Identify the contract with a customer.
2. Identify the performance obligations in the contract.
3. Determine the transaction price.
4. Allocate the transaction price to the performance obligations.
5. Recognize revenue when (or as) the entity satisfies a performance obligation.

Workflows for Revenue Recognition application:

For Subscription business, Revenue Recognition (Rev Rec) and Allocation shall be based on the contract with the customer and ideally will be separate from Bill generation.