You can’t afford to ignore the issues surrounding your current rebate process.
Let’s say, you know the rebate data you’re looking at probably isn’t up to date. And, you also know you shouldn’t really rely on that 3rd party data to make this business decision, or you know none of it is good enough. But, you’re under pressure to make a decision and provide ROI, so you do your best with what you have. Sound familiar?
You don’t need us to tell you that processing rebates that are inaccurate can lead to devastatingly costly mistakes. However, we can’t resist at least one statistic to drive it home- just a 1% inaccuracy rate on £50M of rebates could lead to losses of up to £500,000.
Could your business afford a mistake that size?
Therefore, when you consider just how complex your rebates can get when you introduce factors such as product mixes, tier volumes, time-based tiers across multiple chains, discontinued and new products, it’s not difficult to understand why dedicated rebate management software is an essential tool for a modern business.
We’ve summarised the top 8 benefits you and your business would feel after switching to an ROI driven automated rebate management system – there are some real game-changers in here!
1. Automated, Agile And Auditable
If you’re using spreadsheets to manage your rebate programme, STOP.
Often, your shared Excel documents will be riddled with human error, they will be labour intensive and worst of all, you can’t tell how up-to-date your data is.
For this reason, using rebate management software allows you to see everything in one place with a real time summary dashboard.
So, you can be confident knowing that what you’re looking at is 100% accurate, and thus make informed decisions to increase profitability.
2. Increased Accountability
It’s not a secret, we all like to do things in our own way.
Whilst one way may not necessarily be better than another, it can mean that processes become inconsistent between colleagues’ and departments.
In effect, lead to a disconnect between commercial and finance teams.
With that in mind, an automated rebate approach means your business enjoys a flexibility mechanism.
Coupled with control, to ensure your teams can make consistent decisions at the right time; driving best practice.
3. Maximise Margins
A lack of control, structure and clear documentation will consequently impact your bottom line.
And, throwing human error and poor processes into the mix, can all lead to detrimental effects on the organisation; margin can quickly erode.
With this in mind, automating the rebate process allows you and your teams to make proactive decisions to drive both profitability and business value.
4. Cut Costs
It is very common to feel frustrated by watching teams spend hours manually processing data and crunching numbers.
Because, manual data handling, including pulling data from multiple sources, is also often responsible for creating mistakes and delays that businesses simply cannot afford.
In this case, by implementing a real time solution that validates and imports data from multiple sources, you can remove the manual activity that causes inconsistency, inaccuracy and delays.
Moreover, you can cut costs by re-directing teams to concentrate on other business-critical projects.
5. Reliability Through Automation
Keep in mind the inevitable of holidays, sickness, errors, and non-documented conversations.
It’s no surprise you can quickly lose control.
Unfortunately, it only takes a handful of errors and inconsistencies for things to snowball and cause a much bigger headache.
So, by introducing automated rebate management for; tasks, decisions, workflows, user management, approvals and documentation; you stay in full control.
6. Enhance Predictability
Surprises are great, unless we are talking about your rebates!
And so, consistency and predictability are key – especially when it can cost or save your business money.
As a matter of fact, real time calculation can enable you to drill down to the lowest level of granularity.
Therefore, providing visibility to all parties and reducing the number of queries – and surprises
7. Control Contracts
Signed agreements and documented conversations are great for ensuring your rebate process is effective.
But, if they exist on a printed piece of paper which has been filed in someone’s desk drawer, (who left the business last month), they’re pretty much useless.
Given that, you need visibility of all agreements in real time to be able to have complete control and consistency for effective negotiations.
And, with digital signatures, you’ll know that your agreements are legally binding too.
8. Complete Visibility
Transparency is so powerful in business.
Simply, it cuts through any ambiguity and misunderstandings, providing truth which manifests in trust and openness between teams and individuals.
So, an automated rebate management programme can provide clearer visibility in a single source of truth, allowing you to forecast with total accuracy.
Overall, running a successful business depends on many things.
However, by ignoring the issues your current rebate process brings, you’re limiting and risking your business’ productivity, performance, profitability and growth.
Contact us for more information.
