Contract management, billing & invoicing systems
Replacing ageing ERP and finance modules with a UK-hosted, cloud platform that runs the full quote-to-invoice cycle: products and pricing, contracts, contract-driven billing, invoice validation and exceptions, credit notes and reporting.
Public bodies that sell services, whether to schools, other authorities, partners or the public, often bill from systems that were never designed for it: an ERP module configured years ago, spreadsheets that hold the real pricing rules, and manual checks before every invoice run. The result is slow billing, disputed invoices and a heavy month-end.
We replace that with a single cloud platform where the contract is the source of truth. Quotes become contracts, contracts drive billing, invoices are validated before they go out, and every change is auditable. Payments can stay in the system that already handles them.
Who this is for
- Traded and commercial services teams selling to schools, academies and other public bodies
- Procurement and shared services teams that recharge or bill partner organisations
- Finance and income teams replacing an end-of-life ERP billing module
- Organisations running billing from spreadsheets alongside a finance system
What the solution covers
Products, pricing and quotation
A configurable product and service catalogue with price lists, bundles and discount rules, and quotes built from it with approval routes before they are issued.
Contract creation and management
Accepted quotes converted to contracts with terms, schedules, renewal dates and variations recorded against them, so the contract is the single source of truth for what is billed.
Contract-driven billing
Recurring, one-off, milestone, usage-based and advance billing generated from contract terms, with consolidated invoicing for customers who want one invoice across many contracts.
Invoice validation and exceptions
Rules that check every draft invoice before it is issued, with exceptions routed to a named owner and a clear queue, so errors are caught in the system rather than by the customer.
Credit notes, reversals and rebilling
Credit notes and reversals raised against the original invoice with reasons recorded, and corrected invoices rebilled without breaking the audit trail.
Reporting, audit and data export
Billing, aged debt and contract reports, a complete audit history of every change, and exports in open formats for finance and audit teams.
Integration
Documented APIs for the finance ledger, payments system, customer records and reporting, with logged and retryable calls so a failure elsewhere does not corrupt billing.
Identity and access
Single sign-on and multi-factor authentication through your existing identity provider, with role-based access so people see and approve only what their role allows.
How we deliver it
This describes how we run work of this type. It is method, not a completed contract.
- 1
Discovery and data profiling
Current billing processes, pricing rules and exceptions mapped with the people who run them, and existing customer, product and contract data profiled for quality before any design decisions are made.
- 2
Configuration design
Product catalogue, pricing rules, approval routes, roles and invoice templates designed and signed off, with every rule traced back to a current process or a deliberate change.
- 3
Integration and identity
Single sign-on, finance ledger and payments integrations built and tested early, because they carry the most risk and the longest lead times with other teams.
- 4
Data migration
Customers, products and live contracts migrated in rehearsals, each followed by a reconciliation report that ties migrated balances and contract values back to the source system.
- 5
Parallel billing run
At least one billing cycle run in both the old and new systems and compared line by line, with every difference explained before the old system is switched off.
- 6
Cutover at a period boundary
Go-live timed to a billing period end, with a rehearsed cutover plan, a rollback point and the finance team’s sign-off.
- 7
Hypercare and live support
Extended support through the first billing cycles, then a service desk with agreed response times, monthly service reporting and a jointly owned improvement backlog.
What we bring from our own products
Quote-to-invoice in Onarvo CRM
Our CRM takes deals with line items through to quotes and invoices, with payment tracking and integration with Xero. We build and run it ourselves.
Rules-based billing in Onarvo Care
Onarvo Care calculates charges from completed visits, care packages and funding rules across multiple payers and funders, runs billing periods and exports invoices without spreadsheet work.
Operating our own systems
We host, monitor, patch and support our own products in production, so we deliver this as a service we already run rather than a project we hand over.
Risks we plan for
- Billing errors at go-live
- Parallel billing run with line-by-line comparison and finance sign-off before the old system is switched off.
- Poor quality legacy data
- Data profiled in discovery, cleansing agreed with data owners, and reconciliation reports after every migration rehearsal.
- Pricing rules that live in people’s heads
- Rules captured in workshops, written into the configuration design and tested against real historic invoices.
- Dependency on other teams’ systems
- Integrations and identity built first, with test environments and named contacts agreed in the first weeks.
- Lock-in at contract end
- Open data exports, documented APIs and an exit plan agreed at contract start.
Standards
- UK-hosted cloud SaaS
- Single sign-on and MFA via your identity provider
- Role-based access control
- Full audit trail of every change
- Documented APIs
- UK GDPR roles and DPIA agreed before contract
- WCAG 2.2 AA for user-facing screens
- Open-format data export and exit plan
Questions buyers ask
Can payments stay in our existing system?
Yes. Billing and invoicing are separated from payment collection, and the platform integrates with your payments and finance systems through documented APIs so paid status flows back without rekeying.
How do you make sure invoices are right after go-live?
By running at least one billing cycle in both systems before switching over and explaining every difference, and by validation rules that check each draft invoice before it is issued. Exceptions go to a named owner rather than to the customer.
Can it handle consolidated and advance billing?
They are designed in from the start. Billing is generated from contract terms, so a customer can receive one consolidated invoice across many contracts, and services can be billed in advance with the balance reconciled when they are delivered.
How do credit notes and rebilling work?
Credit notes and reversals are raised against the original invoice with a reason recorded, and a corrected invoice is issued from the same contract, so the audit trail shows exactly what changed and why.
What happens to our data at the end of the contract?
It remains yours. Data can be exported in open formats at any time, and an exit plan covering final exports and handover is agreed at contract start.
Services behind this solution
Business systems implementation
Implementation of HR, care management, CRM and case-handling systems, including data migration, configuration, integration and training.
Learn moreSoftware & digital engineering
Web platforms, mobile apps, APIs and internal tools, designed, built and supported by the team that runs its own products in production.
Learn moreHosting, support & managed services
UK hosting, monitoring, security patching and a service desk with agreed response times, for the systems we build and the ones you already run.
Learn moreData & AI
Reporting, data integration and practical AI, grounded in your own data, with a human in the loop for anything consequential.
Learn moreTypically relevant to: Central & local government · Education
Have a requirement like this?
Share the opportunity or requirement and we will respond with our approach, any questions, and whether we can commit to it.
What happens next
- We review the requirement and any published documents
- We confirm whether we will respond, with any clarification questions
- We meet your timetable, with a named delivery lead
Existing customer? Contact support