Tag: accounting

Posted on

Scale your Receivables Outreach with Automated Customer Communications

a close up shot of paper clipped documents

Effective Customer Master Data Management (CMDM) can be pivotal to successful; collections and accounts receivable (AR) management.

This is especially true when you consider the critical role of timely and personalized communications in optimizing collections, reducing Days Sales Outstanding (DSO), expediting cash flow, enhancing efficiency, and ultimately elevating the customer experience.

Pretectum CMDM is a solution, that can provide advanced capabilities to revolutionize AR outreach through automated and data-driven communications.

Pretectum CMDM empowers organizations to initiate customer communications in alignment with their collections policy at any stage of invoice aging.

By leveraging CMDM capabilities, automated communications could be triggered seamlessly as invoices progress through predefined stages. This strategic sequencing would ensure that customers receive timely reminders, prompting them to take necessary actions. The result could have a significant impact on increased collections, reduced DSO, and accelerated cash flow.

With AR communications, generic emails and texts often fall short of capturing the attention of customers. Pretectum CMDM addresses this challenge by facilitating the surfacing of data that would augment customer contact data, invoices, and company data with additional customer data.

By replacing generic messages with customized templates that take advantage of the additional data in the customer MDM, organizations can enhance the effectiveness of their automated communications.

Personalization not only ensures that messages stand out in the crowded communication landscape but also increases the likelihood of customers reading and acting upon them.

Servicing Multi-Channel Communications

Pretectum CMDM recognizes the diversity in customer communication preferences and provides the flexibility to populate messages across various channels such as text, email, or voice with additional customer data.

By aligning automated communications with the channels preferred by customers, organizations can significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their outreach efforts. This multi-channel approach ensures that messages reach customers through their preferred means, enhancing overall engagement.

Timing is critical to the success of customer communications. Pretectum CMDM supports ad hoc and planned communications during business hours or off hours, whichever approach is likely to optimize the likelihood of messages being read and acted upon.

After-hours, weekend, or holiday communications messages, whichever works best. Using CMDM integration with enterprise scheduling you could ensure that communications reach customers at the most opportune times, contributing to increased responsiveness.

The Role of Pretectum CMDM in Digital Solutions:

In addition to its prowess in augmenting AR communications, Pretectum CMDM integrates seamlessly into the broader landscape of digital solutions for accounts receivable and accounts payable teams. Cloud-based solutions with customer/vendor portals and digital processes are becoming increasingly essential in facilitating seamless connections between vendors and customers, irrespective of their work locations.

Pretectum CMDM, as a leader in connected customer master data management solutions, brings forth a suite of features to enhance productivity and optimize data governance:

Integration with outbound communications: Pretectum CMDM goes beyond the conventional by offering integration hooks to support enhanced communication capabilities. Leveraging CMDM, organizations can augment their communication workflows, ensuring that the right message is delivered to the right customer whenever is most appropriate. This saves time and effort and enhances the overall effectiveness of communication.

Customer Self-service: Empowering customers with self-service capabilities is a hallmark of modern data management solutions. Pretectum CMDM provides customer self-service that enables clients to access their customer accounts, view data, provide consent, and verify their data seamlessly. This not only enhances the customer experience but also reduces the burden on data management and finance teams, allowing them to focus on more strategic aspects of their business activities.

Collections Management: Effective collections require robust activity management, while Pretectum CMDM does nothing, particularly for AR activity management, it can contribute to improving activity management efficiency. Pretectum CMDM offers comprehensive customer master data management including data quality, deduplication, and syndication. Depending on how the integrations are leveraged, communications, payment status, and other facets of receivables data can be represented and maintained in an automated way. CMDM ensures that organizations have a holistic view of the customer even for associates who may not have direct access to finance systems. This visibility may be crucial for making data-driven decisions and continually optimizing the business even for collections strategies.

Reporting & Forecasting: In finance, the quality and reliability of customer data is real power. Pretectum CMDM supports reporting and forecasting by enabling organizations to augment finance performance with supplementary customer data. Analyzing trends, identifying bottlenecks, and predicting future cash flows, bringing additional CMDM data can empower finance teams to make better-informed decisions. A proactive approach to financial management augmented with CMDM data can be valuable for businesses to better navigate the complexities of today’s business environment.

Schema Design

Designing a customer master data schema with additional data attributes to support richer, more personalized multi-channel communications involves considering various aspects of customer interactions and preferences.

Below is a suggested schema that extends beyond traditional accounts receivable customer data:

Customer ID (Primary Key)

First Name

Last Name

Gender

Date of Birth

Contact Number

Email Address (Primary Communication Channel)

Billing Address

Shipping Address

City

State/Province

ZIP/Postal Code

Country

Preferred Language

Opt-in for Email Communications

Opt-in for SMS Communications

Opt-in for Push Notifications

Preferred Communication Time (if applicable)

Email Interaction History

SMS Interaction History

Push Notification Interaction History

Social Media Interaction History

Transaction History

Product Preferences

Average Purchase Value

Last Purchase Date

Demographic Information

Psychographic Information

Behavioral Segmentation

Customer Loyalty Level

Customer Feedback History

Product/Service Reviews

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Linked Social Media Accounts

Social Media Engagement History

Preferred Device for Interactions (e.g., Mobile, Desktop)

Operating System Preferences

Response to Previous Campaigns

Preferences for Promotional Content

Participation in Loyalty Programs

Attendance at Events

Preferences for Event Types

Customer Service Tickets

Resolution History

Preferred Customer Service Channel

Consent for Data Usage

Privacy Settings

Integration with CRM Systems

Integration with Marketing Automation Tools

Integration with Customer Support Systems

This schema provides a foundation for a comprehensive customer master data model that supports personalized multi-channel communications. It allows businesses to understand customer preferences, tailor communications, and build stronger relationships by leveraging data from various touchpoints.

The integration of Pretectum CMDM into accounts receivable management represents a transformative step towards optimizing efficiency, accelerating cash flow, and elevating the customer experience.

Through its advanced capabilities in personalization augmentation, and customer self-service for data verification, a business can augment collections activity management, and add robustness to reporting and forecasting.

Selecting the right software partner is a strategic decision that can significantly impact the efficiency and success of operations. Pretectum CMDM stands as an experienced and innovative provider of cloud-based connected data management solutions. Pretectum CMDM distinguishes itself as a trusted partner in optimizing efficiency and accelerating customer data management.

Choosing Pretectum CMDM as a trusted software partner is not merely a technological investment but a strategic move toward improved financial excellence in an ever-evolving business environment.

Posted on

Is an email address, key customer contact data?

Email has become an integral part of our daily lives, it’s hard to fathom a reality without it. Billions of people across the globe rely on email for communication, and businesses and organizations have embraced it as a fundamental tool. Email has not only replaced traditional mail and phone calls but has also paved the way for the automation of critical business processes.

Unlocking the Potential of Email Addresses

While key customer master data is crucial for business operations, there’s one element that stands out as paramount: the email address itself. An email address serves as a unique identifier for accounting departments at vendors or customers. No two individuals in the world share the same email address except by intent, making it an unparalleled means of personalized communication.

With a person’s email address, you have the power to connect and interact with them from almost anywhere on the planet. Virtually every adult in the connected world, regardless of gender or age, possesses an email address. This universality enables the automation of communications, promotes a paperless environment, and initiates email-based workflow. In essence, an email address is a linchpin that enables automation, eliminates inefficient manual tasking, and can bolster relationship management. It’s the cornerstone of doing modern-day business.

Email addresses hold the potential to revolutionize profile management for customer master data. With an email address, you can seamlessly integrate automated solutions, including:

Profile Management to gain access to accurate and comprehensive customer master data. Leading to more efficient business processes and accelerated engagement.

Onboarding Sequences that streamline operational and financial processes, enhancing overall transactional efficiency.

Automated Communications can facilitate more effective and efficient interactions, smoothing out various transactional and engagement interactions.

Self-service portals empower customers to manage their accounts effortlessly, eradicating cumbersome manual centralized back office procedures.

Email: A Cornerstone of Account Management

In the realm of accounting, an email address is an invaluable asset. It serves as the gateway to digitization, enabling the automation of accounting processes and communication. Automated credit and collection solutions harness the power of email addresses, reducing reliance on paper-based workflows and optimizing automation.

The transition to a paperless and automated business environment need not remain an unrealistic aspiration. A connected accounting solution, tailored for Accounts Receivable (AR) teams, can catalyze this transformation and unlock the benefits of office automation.

Consider then, how your accounting solution could benefit from the Pretectum CMDM for Customer Master Data Management with customer email identifiers in the following tasking and process flows.

Digital Onboarding: Collect master data directly from your customers as zero-party or first-party data streamlining the onboarding process.

Invoicing and Billing: Email addresses are vital for sending invoices, receipts, and payment reminders electronically to customers. This accelerates the billing process and ensures customers receive accurate and timely records of their transactions.

Payment Notifications: Accounting relies on email to notify customers when their payments have been received and processed. This confirmation helps customers keep track of their financial commitments.

Payment Reminders: Email addresses enable the accounting department to send friendly payment reminders or overdue notices to customers who have outstanding balances. This can expedite the collection process and reduce the number of late payments.

Financial Statements: Email is a convenient channel for distributing monthly or periodic financial statements, allowing customers to review their account activity and balances, which is especially important for credit or subscription-based services.

Communication for Account Inquiries: When customers have questions or concerns about their accounts, they often use email to contact the accounting department. Email addresses serve as a direct line of communication for addressing customer inquiries efficiently.

Transaction Confirmations: For important financial transactions such as refunds or adjustments, email notifications provide customers with written confirmation, enhancing transparency and trust.

Document Sharing: Accounting may need to request or share documents with customers, such as tax forms or compliance-related documents. Email facilitates the secure exchange of such sensitive information.

Account Updates: Customers may need to update their contact information, including email addresses. Accounting relies on email to communicate these changes, ensuring that customer data remains accurate.

Newsletter and Promotions: Some companies use email addresses to send newsletters or promotional offers related to financial services or products, which can enhance customer engagement and retention.

Surveys and Feedback: Accounting departments may seek customer feedback or conduct surveys through email to improve their services and processes.

The customer email address is an indispensable tool for the accounting department in customer master data management. It can enhance data accuracy, streamline communication, and ultimately contribute to the department’s efficiency and effectiveness in managing financial transactions and customer relationships.

Posted on

The value of customer master data

selective focus photography crystals stones

Those of you responsible for customer master data management will be well aware that there is a data revolution underway in business. This revolution is being fueled by a number of factors.

Data Privacy seemed to be “the thing” that would upend carefully curated rich customer master data repositories in favour of the bare minimum of data. The global COVID-19 pandemic added another twist as we witnessed the explosion of home delivery and online shopping activity as consumers trapped at home, resorted to eCommerce sites, virtual grocery carts and fast food portals to get their nutritional and retail fixes.

What was likely not anticipated, was that we would see quite the volume of new activity that would grow our master data repositories. All that data has some value, but we know that not all the data has the same value.

The data explosion brings with it, headaches of compliance and minimizing the risk associated with data. Data managers are being asked to critically assess the value of the data they have. How exactly do you do that though?

One school of thought is that you need to look at who uses which data.

Understanding where data is used and who uses it and what they use it for is no mean feat. New technologies like data virtualization technologies, cloud storage systems and SaaS have done a pretty good job of democratizing access to data but have they made it more trustworthy, current and relevant? There are still an awful lot of spreadsheets out there. you’ll want to reign in the use of spreadsheets for maintaining customer data for a host of reasons not least of them being compliance.

Is data really valuable?

It has been said that “Data is the new oil” a deceptively simple mantra for our modern world. “Whether in The New York Times, The Economist, or WIRED, the wildcatting nature of oil exploration, plus the extractive exploitation of a trapped asset, seems like an apt metaphor for the boom in monetized data.” per Antonio Garcia Martinez.

Jeroen van Zeeland says the “analogy turned meme turned dogma is persistent and flawed“, whichever it is,k oil or water, the reality is that untapped it may have no value; tapped it may be a form of lifeblood for any number of business initiatives or ventures.

One thing that we can be sure of, is that there needs to be a methodical assessment of the data that a business has at hand and the value that might be ascribed in terms of actual and potential yield.

Working out the value

Four pillars of activity need to be undertaken within the business and among data managers, in particular, to get the data the kind of profile that will have it accorded some appropriate value. The first of these is around the classic accounting approach to defining assets and liabilities.

Some would argue for data being considered a liability but let’s put that aside for one moment and consider how you might appoint your data as an asset.

An asset is defined as something owned or controlled, with an intrinsic monetary value that can be sold or exchanged for cash. Consider a Facebook, a Google or a Microsoft. Whatever data they have about consumers or persons of interest that they can monetize through trade, is effectively an asset for them. Strictly speaking then, data, and particularly customer or consumer data, aligns with the definition of an asset. If you don’t sell it or don’t use it, does it still intrinsically hold any value?

Unlike traditional assets, like gold, land or buildings, customer data, if simply left to lie, will deteriorate over time and eventually will be arguably worthless unlike undiscovered diamonds and minerals in the ground – in fact, the storage and maintenance of it may even be deemed a cost. So the important thing is to know what data you have and to leverage it.

Even gold, land and buildings, as assets need some degree of maintenance. Gold needs to be stored and inventoried, and probably inspected on occasion to make sure that sticky fingers don’t walk off with any of it. Land needs to have the taxes paid and needs to be kept in accordance with local laws, which may mean it needs to be fenced or the grass cut and of course, buildings need almost continuous maintenance work to avoid them falling into disrepair. These assets are managed with policy, standards, processes and procedures. You need to do exactly the same with the data, especially the customer data.

If the business’ attitude to the data is that it is just a headache and holding onto it is a risk because it might get leaked or inadvertently fall into the hands of bad players then you’re quite possibly not considering how you might use that data. If you choose not to store a regular customer’s details then you don’t provide your marketing and sales teams with the ability to reach out to the customer with details of the latest offering your business has. This in turn diminishes the potential for customer loyalty and augmented customer lifetime value.

Within the Pretectum CMDM we hope to make it easier for any business to securely and appropriately manage the authoritative customer master data records in a straightforward and comprehensive way. We do believe that the customer master in particular can be one of your most valuable assets. Contact us to find out how.