Today modern business landscapes are changing with the latest technology trends and growing rapidly. According to that customer behavior and demands are also changing very fast. The success of every business definitely depends upon the customer satisfaction that fuels business. But the traditional methods today are no more successful in tracking the customer’s activities. Here comes the Salesforce billing (SB) into action.
The automation of business processes leads to pushing the online business where customers also prefer to do transactions. In this blog, I am going to explore the payment processing methods and gateways under Salesforce Billing. Before that, you should know about Salesforce billing in brief.
Salesforce Billing is nothing but the automated billing process developed by Salesforce. Moreover, it is an add-on package that uses various key records and data from Salesforce CPQ and automates the invoices.
It allows companies to accept payments and allocate them on the Salesforce platform with simple use. The process starts with the placement of the order in Salesforce CPQ and the Salesforce Billing picks that order and produces an invoice, revenue, & payment. Here Salesforce CPQ stands for Configure, Price, Quote, which is a sales tool for sales reps. It helps them to generate sales quotes much faster and accurately and close deals quickly.
All this process is beneficial for both the business and customers as it totally works on automation. Furthermore, this platform is totally hassle-free and easier to use. So many companies today prefer it as their payment processing medium for a large number of transactions.
Let us move into the main content that will give more idea on Salesforce billing and payment processing.
Payment processing in Salesforce billing
In this section, you will understand the payment methods, payment processing, and the data model that is in use. Here the payment data model has three different objects like Account, Invoice, and Payment.
Let us discuss invoice and payment objects as an account is nothing but the creation of an account to start processing.
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Invoice
Salesforce Billing allows users to generate invoices manually or automate the process of invoice generation through an invoice scheduler. The invoice scheduler assesses the product orders as per the user-defined basis and generates invoices with the invoice lines.
In Salesforce billing, the invoice carries the inventory of products & services ordered or purchased. Along with this, it includes the total payment that a customer must pay. Also, the invoice record contains many things like order date, payment due, balance, etc.
We will discuss more on the invoice processing in the coming sections but there are other areas also to know. These are payment method, payment gateway, payment scheduler, and the payment run.
Payment Method
Salesforce Billing supports different payment interfaces to process credit cards and ACH transactions smoothly. The payment method keeps the records of the credit card details or ACH of the customers and the payment gateway info. Today every business uses automated methods for payment processing. These payment methods efficiently work with quick payment submission rather than entering each detail manually. Also, this method saves much time and makes the transaction faster on time.
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The Salesforce Billing allows users to build payment methods records from the given list of the related account. It includes some important fields such as payment gateway, payment type, auto-pay, and the payment gateway token. Also, while entering onto the payment gateway, there requires to fill in the user’s details. This includes credit/debit card details, user name, password, card expiry date, etc.
The payment gateway here is the lookup for the payment gateway record for building the payment record. Then the second, Payment type is the selection of values to pay either Credit Card or ACH. Next, the Auto-pay is the checkbox that needs to check which automates the payment from said account.
Finally, the gateway token is the unique value that represents the payment method using the gateway. It is to note that Sforce doesn’t expose any sensitive info of the customer regarding the transaction or payment. Instead of that, it uses the token value for the payment done. Moreover, it offers a secure and safe payment method and gateway.
Hence, to understand the payment method, you know first about the Payment gateway creation which is as follows.
Payment Gateway
The payment gateways are the external services providers for the user payments and they process them. These gateways hold the data regarding the connection established between the Salesforce Billing and the external payment gateway.
Moreover, the Salesforce Billing platform offers different types of payment processing combinations with many gateways. These payment gateways include CyberSource, Payeezy, etc. and these gateways require settings. Hence, to configure these payment gateways, the user needs to install the AppExchange pack. And has to follow the documentation guide for necessary steps. This will simplify the process of installation and its further use.
For example, if a user uses CyberSource as his payment gateway for any transaction. Then he needs to go through the following fields.
Active - This field must be active while processing the invoices and payments.
Default - If this default field is checked then all the transactions in this tool will process through this gateway.
Payment Gateway Type - It is a common picklist for all payment gateways such as CyberSource, Payeezy, etc. The user needs to choose among the gateways to process his transaction.
Hence, this is all about the Payment gateway and its use.
Payment Scheduler
This is an object under this platform useful to run the payment process. Further, it includes various data like payment start date and time, target date, payment type, and schedule type. Also, the payment schedule frequency can be daily, weekly, and monthly.
The important fields in the payment scheduler include the following items. Such as Payment batch, payment type, start date and time, and the target date.
All this depends upon the SB package level settings and configuration. After setting these package levels we can select the options. These are whether the payment scheduler should pick the invoices based on the invoice date or invoice due date.
Payment Run
This is useful to automate the payments’ collection against the repeated charges. On the other side, the payment run assesses the account’s payment method on the given invoice. Then it uses it for payment collection from the invoices posted.
Here, while the payment scheduler picks the invoice for processing the payment run record is created in contrast to it. It is also available as a related list with the scheduler in the payment gateway.
This payment run includes various information regarding the payment process. Such as the number of invoices processed successfully, successfully completed transactions, failed payments, etc. Moreover, it also consists of the total number of transactions produced and the total invoices/payments processed.
Also, it includes the details like payment run start date and process finished time.
The important fields under the Payment Run record are as follows.:-
Payment Schedular
Status
Target Date
Start date
Process Completed time
After completion of the Payment Run process, it produces the Payment Transaction records for the invoices processed. This record includes Gateway status, Response Status and Code, and the Gateway ID. In case, the transaction gets approved, then the payment created checkbox is checked for the payment transaction record. Also, in the contrast to it, the payment record is produced in Salesforce Billing.
Payment
Finally, the processing of Pay comes to end with this option. This field is useful to capture the payment details within Salesforce Billing. A payment record stores the data regarding the payment amount, payment type, and the account where the payment made from. Moreover, it stores other info regards payment such as funds allocation, unallocated, and refund amounts, etc. The payment record includes the following important fields like payment number, type, status, and amount.
When a payment run develops a payment against the invoice, it automatically produces the payment allocations. It is against the full balance of the invoice line. Also, there is another important feature of this platform that is Refunds. If the customer wishes to cancel or change the payment of the invoiced order products by not allocating the funds, then “refunds” are provided.
Then automatically payment gets cancel or in case payment done by the user, it gets a refund to his account. It also needs to mention the particulars of his account here.
Salesforce Billing Payment Gateways
Salesforce Billing offers support for different interfaces regarding the transaction process. These gateways are the external service providers that help in the electronic processing of these payments. Moreover, this platform supports the below payment features:-
Tokenization
Charge
Refund
Some of the similar features already we have discussed in the above content. Also, there are some other payment features other than above which are:-
Void Token
Capture of payment
Charge
Get Refund Status
Void Refund
Refund of Payment, etc.
Now, let us know how the actual Salesforce Billing process works.
Salesforce Billing system
Through this latest Billing system, users can manage the invoice orders and their balances through debit/credit notes. Also, they can use a third-party payment gateway to automate the customer payments process. Moreover, users also can keep track of the transactions data into the financial books.
This system runs on several rules that decide the creation of transaction records on the basis of the event/order.
These important rules include the following:-
Creating an invoice
Invoice Line pricing and date values that influence the billing dates, periods, cycles, etc.
Tax calculations
Creating a revenue schedule and transactions.
Calculation of tax based on the tax integrations and taxation data.
Salesforce Billing benefits
Salesforce Billing has many benefits and it serves many businesses. This is through enabling them to leave the legacy accounting systems to the latest ERP. Also, the latest ERP workflows have replaced with Salesforce Billing’s end-to-end solutions. Moreover, it has helped in bringing operational excellence to the business.
It is developed to send error-free bills to the customers and ensure quick and secure payments that drive healthy business. This billing system has helped many businesses to set up a healthy invoicing and payment system. Moreover, the important benefits of this billing system include the following:-
Reducing errors
This latest billing system is designed to minimize manual errors in processing invoices against payments. The automation of payment invoices made it easier with error-free invoice generation. Also, this process saves a lot of time and money.
Subscription management
The Salesforce Billing system supports various services that are billed on a repeated basis. Also, they include discounts, free trials, payment renewals, and refunds.
Minimizing Administration
This automated invoice process reduces the administration effectively. Through faster invoice processing, it brings the valuable time down to focus more on other core business areas.
It also brings Transparency through an effective and efficient invoicing system. Also, it is easier to find the required invoice record from the system. And provide the same to the customer who queried about it.
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Simplifying the records
Through the use of a single integrated system, it becomes easier to create many records in very little time. Moreover, the custom dashboards and automated reports production also improve the business efficiency and profitability. Thus, this latest system simplifies record creation and maintenance.
Hence, these are a few of the benefits of this latest automated billing practice.
The market is facing tough competition in the global platform. This billing process helps businesses to reduce the payment process as well as invoice generation and process time. Many business enterprises today are adopting the latest technology trends with the changing market. This billing system also came out of that and a part of CPQ.
Conclusion
This is all about the Salesforce Billing payment process and its useful benefits. I hope you got the overall idea of this billing system and its usage. Thus, if you are looking to manage your business transactions with automated billing and want to learn in this regard. Then just go through the Salesforce Billing Online Training with OnlineITGuru and get the real-time learning experience. This system helps many business enterprises today in their payment process. Also, it has a vast area to expand globally in the current market.