Invoices for Salesforce

Our Story

Kognoz was born out of the idea that a company first and foremost objective is to add value to the company's stakeholders: its customers, its communities, and its employees.

We started back in 2004 as a development factory with emphasis on cloud-based systems, although back then we used the term "distributed computing" because the notion of the cloud was not that wispread at the time. A few years later, in 2008, we stumbled upon Salesforce, and started to help companies integrate Salesforce with other cloud systems, as well as to develop bespoke solutions on the Salesforce platform for customers around of world.

Along the way we heard customers regularly talk about their longing to process their invoices right in Salesforce, the very platform they use to capture their sales, and manage the relationship with their own customers. And for many companies this made a lot of sense, as it would provide a complete view of the customer in one place for all the organization to share, and would allow these organizations to leverage their investment in Salesforce.

The first and one question we had at the time was why the existing solutions were not a good fit for many companies. As it turned out, most billing apps for Salesforce worked along similar lines, and still do. Normally, they provide an edit screen for users to enter their invoices manually in a first step, and, in the best-case scenario, the screen is prepopulated with the sales data but still in edit mode. This information is in turn used to generate an invoice document, in another step, and is then sent to the customers in yet another step. This is inefficient and does not scale even at small invoice volumes. It is also error prone as the invoice information is edited manualy. And to exacerbate things further, there is usually little room to control what data is included in the invoices, as well as the look-and-feel of the invoice documents, because these are always prescribed by the billing app, except for adding your company logo.

It was a clear opportunity to do better. The way we looked at it was that the invoices of companies using Salesforce would invariably include information that is captured in Salesforce during the sales process such as sales data, customer's details, contracts, and any custom information specific to the company business. Consequently, all the information needed to generate the invoices is already in Salesforce at the time of invoicing, and there should be no need for manual edits. In addition, companies already know what information they want to include in their invoices, and what look-and-feel they want in each case. So, if organization could define upfront their invoices design and select what data in their sales records should be displayed, they will have complete control over what invoice each customer receives. In turn, these invoice pre-definitions could be used to automate much of the invoice generation so processing a single invoice or 100s of invoices at a time could be down to 1-click while the company's billing preferences are automatically enforced. Moreover, when invoicing in batch mode, the entire company routine billing could be done in minutes. The challenge was that this should hold for any company regardless of what they sell, and of the specific billing process they want to follow. As we digested the ideas it was clear that we will not build a new billing app. The goal that was starting to emerge was to develop a billing platform that companies using Salesforce can use to customize their invoicing to their very needs

In order to achieve our goals we invented a new approach to invoicing, and used it as the basis to build a new billing platform. After a couple of years of development and countless man hours poured into it, the first version of Invoices for Salesforce was made generally available in the Appexchange in January 2012. Since then, we have continued to enhance the platform, and kept adding new features, guided at every step by the same principle that set us off on day one: add value to our customers, our employees and communities around the world.

Leadership Team

Fernando Israel

CEO

Fernando founded Kognoz after over a decade developing software to support derivatives trading, first at Derivative Trading Systems, and later at Morgan Stanley in London. Previously, he carried out research work in the areas of Aeronautical and Mechanical Engineering in Israel and the UK. At Kognoz he leads the development team, and coordinates the business strategy. Fernando is an avid long distance runner, enjoys travelling with his family, and discovering new places and cultures.

Ana María Pulleiro

COO

Ana María joined Kognoz during the early days, and from the very beginning she has been responsible for the company's smooth operation. She looks after our customers and the team, making everybody's life easier. Before joining Kognoz she has travelled the world in a diplomatic role, and lived in the US, Italy, and Ecuador. She holds a degree in Law from the UDELAR, and an MA in Liberal Arts from Georgetown University. Ana María practices Yoga daily, and she likes to go on adventurous trips with family and friends as often as she can.

How are we different ?

The ability to process 50 invoices in 30 seconds with 1 click is certainly one key differentiator from other solutions, but this is just one outcome. What makes Invoices for Salesforce® essentially different is that it is a complete biling platform that lets you customize and control your billing according to your specific needs, with a degree of flexibility made possible by our new approach to invoicing.

At its core what this new approach does is it combines billing scenarios, a new concept, and invoice templates into bespoke billing processes. This way companies can implement their own custom-made billing process, or processes, by designing billing scenarios and invoice templates to fit their exact needs. So rather than forcing you to adjust your billing around a stiff solution, Invoices for Salesforce® lets you build your own, designed by you, and for you.

Whether you offer products or services, whether they are one-time, recurring, or usage-based, or whether you receive donations, it always comes down to devising the specific billing scenario that applies in each case.

Whether you need to add taxes or shipping to your invoices, whether you offer discounts, or need your invoices to be in different currencies and languages, the platform invoice template editor makes it easy to include the data from your Salesforce records you want to display in your invoices, and design their layout to look the way you want. So instead of imposing on you a fixed invoice layout to which you are only allowed to add your company logo, Invoices for Salesforce® gives you full control over your invoice documents data, and their look-and-feel, down to the last pixel.

Invoices for Salesforce® is more than yet another billing app. Invoices for Salesforce® is a billing platform that lets you design and run your own custom-made billing flows, and puts you in complete control over the composition and content of your invoices, no matter what you sell and how you sell it. And thanks to our new approach to invoicing you can process your invoices in batches, on top of one-at-a-time with individual mode, to get your entire company routine billing done in minutes, using clicks, and accurately every time without the need to rekey a thing.

But we did not stop at billing. We supplemented invoices with payments so you can manage your cashflows, and you can stay on top of your invoices outstanding balances, alongside your customers and sales information. And if invoices remain unpaid after their due date and become overdue, you can streamline the collections process using Salesforce out-of-the-box automation tools, and keeping everybody in your organization in the loop.

Invoices for Salesforce® is the billing platform that puts you in complete control over your billing process in Salesforce®, now and as your needs change going forward, and it does that differently than anything you've seen before.