GRITIT optimised billing processes with Dynamics 365.

Meaningful Outcomes

• Decreases the customer billing process time from seven days to four hours with the Magnetism Xero integration add-on

• Very positive results of the annual customer survey and have been rewarded with numerous awards and accolades

• 170+ customers satisfied with their new portal made through Xero integration

Objective

Automate manual billing system, Improve timeliness and accuracy of customer invoicing and Optimise customer experience.

Challenge

GRITIT has grown rapidly since inception, and in doing so, increased both the load and the complexity on the administration function. With over 170 customers and conducting more than 165,000 jobs last season, GRITIT found its manual invoicing processes needed to become automated.

GRITIT had adopted cloud accounting solution Xero, and Dynamics CRM to handle invoicing and job management respectively. Both systems added significant value, but manual exporting of data was required from CRM to spreadsheets. The data was then manipulated to handle multi-party relationships, invoices split by services provided, and then imported into Xero.

The management team therefore sought a solution that would eliminate the manual processes and improve billing accuracy and timeliness. They also needed the solution to handle multiple sources of data (e.g. drivers PDA provided time on site, jobs triggered by weather forecasts) and provide one single source of all customer information.

Solution

Seeking ways to improve integration between Xero and Dynamics CRM, GRITIT’s research led them to Magnetism’s listing for a CRM connector on the Xero website.

Magnetism was engaged initially to implement the connector to streamline the flow of data between CRM and Xero, but both GRITIT and Magnetism quickly saw the opportunity to further automate the billing process.

In the initial phase, Magnetism created a custom (.NET) application to automate the complex billing logic required to generate GRITIT customer invoices. The new application draws information directly from CRM, applies variables such as service types, discount rates, gritting factors and billing packages to calculate the appropriate rates; validates to ensure completeness and accuracy , and then posts the information to Xero. This information is then also posted back to CRM via Magnetism’s connector to provide a 360 degree view of the customer.

The success of this first phase led a second project to extend the billing application to manage the payments to GRITIT’s team of operators. As with client billing, operator payments are calculated based on multiple variables (job numbers, types, deductions etc.) requiring Magnetism to build new logic into the application, and create additional reporting functionality that would give operators visibility of their payments and how they were calculated. This data is then posted directly to Xero AP for payment.

Looking for further ways to improve customer experience, GRITIT then commissioned the development of a new client portal and quoting module. The portal, custom-developed by Magnetism, gives clients secure access to real-time job information, gritting plans and job and billing history, allows invoices to be downloaded from Xero and integrated with MS SharePoint to access contract information.