If you have strolled around the Aysling website, then it is likely you have seen the term “Contracts to Cash” in quite a few places, and you might be wondering what is Contracts to Cash; and how does it apply to my business? To answer that, we have to explain what Aysling isn’t first.

Aysling is not really an ERP

At least not yet. To be an ERP or Enterprise Resource Planner, a software platform needs to contain accounting and inventory functionality. Now, Aysling does have snippets of both of those features, it can manage your project accounting, invoicing, billing, etc.; however, when it comes to a general ledger, Aysling has always been set up as a partner with groups like Intuit’s QuickBooks Online. Reason for that, is because those groups are 100% focused on the accounting aspect, and we have realized that there are many components that we do better elsewhere, and rather than attempt to rebuild the wheel, it made sense to create advanced integrations that allow your business processes to flow from one system to the next.

Aysling is not 100% a PSA

Unlike an ERP, Aysling is nearly 100% a Professional Services Automation tool; however, there’s one component that most PSA platforms claim to provide, and it’s shared among ERP solutions. That feature, once again the general ledger. Aysling features project management, resource allocation, timesheet and expense tracking, and a slew of features and modules to manage any service-based business. With that being said, Aysling itself manages its business, B2B SaaS subscriptions, and custom development projects with its dedicated QuickBooks Online integration; which needless to say, works flawlessly.

Aysling is not a Marketing Acquisition tool

That’s not to say that you can’t send drip campaigns (because you can), or that you can’t run automation workflows for various sales and marketing tasks (because you can do those as well). Similarly, to the accounting functionality, Aysling provides a great amount of resources and functionality for all departments, marketing included; however, we realized that groups like HubSpot and MailChimp do an excellent job at marketing automation, inbound marketing, and overall the initial lead generation aspect associated with those platforms. For that, we built great integrations to software platforms that pair well with our platform.

So, what is Aysling’s Contracts to Cash functionality?

Now that you have read what Aysling isn’t, it makes it easier to understand what it is. A lead comes into your website through a webform (HubSpot, Gravity Forms, etc.), that contact has been marketed to, and is aware of your brand and is ready to take those next steps with your business. That contact information, as well as some of their primary past actions, is then passed over to the Aysling platform, where your sales team will continue their sales process. This includes proposal generation, contract management, and order management with digital signatures. From that contract, it will be passed to the projects team within Aysling, where they can create tasks, milestones, have discussions, and make sure that their contacts are being onboarded effectively.

Once the project/user is onboarded, that information is then passed to the billing department (also handled in Aysling), where invoices are sent and payments and cash are collected, before finally the data is then passed to your accounting platform (as mentioned, we use QuickBooks Online), for revenue recognition. While all of these back-office operations are being handled in Aysling, your administration team will be able to review hundreds of reports, endless dashboards, and customized widgets to make sure your processes are operating effectively.

It’s easiest to think of Aysling regarding your departments, the marketing team likely has their own software platform they use for landing pages, email campaigns, and webforms; the finance department, also likely has a tool they have been using for quite some time to manage their accounting needs. Aysling falls into all of the departments between those two platforms; traditionally, Aysling replaces the need of having many software platforms, so instead of an order management system, proposal generation system, project management system, billing & invoice platform, and others, you can successfully manage your business with less, saving your business software subscription costs, double-entry, and the worry of data not communicating between platforms.