Consolidating 11 Regional Billing Systems to Deliver a Single Customer Invoice Across 36 US Markets
Case Study · Media & Advertising
Consolidating 11 Regional Billing Systems to Deliver a Single Customer Invoice Across 36 US Markets
Industry
Media & Advertising
Size
~100,000 employees
Region
North America
Monetization Model
Usage-Based
About Customer
Use case
Accounts Receivable Consolidation & Usage-Based Billing
Transformation
11 Regional AR Systems → Unified Billing Platform
Company
A leading advertising sales company operating in 36 states and 91 markets across the United States. The company creates scalable advertising and marketing services driven by aggregated data insights — helping businesses of all sizes reach audiences across any screen. To support this scale, the company required robust billing infrastructure capable of processing high volumes of media usage data and delivering a seamless invoicing experience to its agency and advertiser clients.
Situation
The company had grown through regional expansion, accumulating more than 11 separate accounts receivable systems along the way. Customers operating across multiple markets received multiple disconnected invoices, each processed through a different regional platform. There was no way to consolidate spend by customer regardless of geography or expenditure type. Back-office operations were heavily manual, and the fragmented architecture made it increasingly difficult to offer flexible, customized billing options — a growing competitive disadvantage as agency clients demanded more sophisticated and individualized services.
Challenges
- Manual invoicing processes across 11+ regional AR solutions made it impossible to issue a single consolidated invoice to customers, regardless of spend type or geographic location of purchase.
- No ability to process and track high volumes of media usage and transactional data in a unified way — limiting flexibility in customer billing and restricting the range of billing models the company could offer.
- Limited ability to expand billing functionality with the existing AR solution provider, creating a ceiling on the company’s capacity to offer individualized, usage-driven services that met specific customer needs.
- Need to automate back-office operations and integrate regional AR systems — requiring a partner capable of designing, architecting, and implementing a solution built for both current needs and future growth.
Why DigitalRoute
Fragmented vs. unified – 11 regional AR systems replaced with a usage-aware mediation layer for SAP BRIM
Processing high volumes of media impression data across diverse regional systems — and feeding it accurately into SAP BRIM — required a purpose-built usage data mediation platform. Generic integration tooling could not handle the data volumes or the billing model complexity involved. MediationZone was selected for its proven ability to ingest, aggregate, and route large-scale usage data to SAP’s billing and revenue management layer.
- Purpose-built for high-volume media usage data. MediationZone was implemented specifically to track and process large quantities of media impression and transaction data — at the volumes and speed required to support flexible, usage-driven billing across 91 markets.
- Native integration with SAP BRIM. As a SAP Solution Extension partner, DigitalRoute’s mediation layer fed usage data directly into SAP Convergent Charging and SAP Invoicing — enabling calendar billing, impression-based billing, and multiple discount models within a single customer invoice.
- Scalable architecture for future growth. The solution was designed to scale alongside the business — supporting new billing models, additional data sources, and expanding market coverage without requiring architectural rework.
The Solution
Usage data mediation layer between media delivery systems and SAP BRIM
MediationZone was deployed as the usage data processing layer between the company’s media delivery infrastructure and SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management (BRIM). Implemented by M&S Consulting, the solution collected high volumes of media impression and transaction data from across the company’s regional operations, aggregated and enriched it for usage-based billing, and delivered structured records into SAP Convergent Charging and SAP Invoicing.
With SAP BRIM’s subscription order management component, the company built a product catalog supporting multiple usage options — enabling calendar invoices, impression-based billing, and flexible discount structures, all consolidated into a single invoice per customer regardless of spend type or purchase geography.
Automation of the invoice distribution process enabled the company to attain Certified Digital Vendor status — a distinction that reduced friction with agency partners and drove supplemental revenue. The unified AR platform cut manual effort across billing operations while simultaneously improving the experience delivered to customers.
The Outcome
+10%
Billing efficiency
Efficiencies gained in the billing process, resulting in measurably improved customer service across all markets.
25%
Faster payments
Reduction in payment application time following consolidation of AR processes and automation of invoice distribution.
One
Invoice per customer
Single consolidated invoice issued per customer regardless of spend type or the geographic location of purchases.
CDV
Certified Digital Vendor
Invoice automation enabled Certified Digital Vendor status — positioning the company as a prized agency partner and driving supplemental revenue.
The Architecture
