We’re implementing subscription billing for our SaaS products and debating whether to manage subscription lifecycle in D365 Finance or D365 Sales. The ERP model treats subscriptions as recurring revenue schedules with strong accounting controls, while the CRM model focuses on customer relationship and renewal workflows. Our challenge is renewal automation - sales wants ownership of the renewal process in CRM, but finance needs tight control over revenue recognition and billing timing. How have others architected the integration between ERP and CRM subscription models to balance these competing requirements?
Both approaches have merit depending on your business model. The critical question is: who initiates subscription changes? If sales frequently modifies subscription terms (add-ons, upgrades, custom pricing), CRM as master makes sense. If subscriptions are standardized with minimal mid-term changes, ERP as master is simpler. We’ve implemented both patterns. The CRM-master approach requires more sophisticated integration to ensure billing accuracy, including validation of pricing, discounts, and revenue recognition rules before updates flow to Finance. The ERP-master approach is simpler to integrate but less flexible for sales-driven subscription modifications.
Our sales team definitely drives frequent mid-term changes - upgrades, downgrades, add-on modules. That suggests CRM as master might be better for us. But I’m concerned about the validation complexity you mentioned. How do you ensure that sales-initiated changes don’t violate revenue recognition rules or create billing errors? Do you have approval workflows that route changes through finance before they hit the ERP?
I’d argue the opposite approach. Subscriptions are fundamentally financial instruments - they represent committed revenue streams with complex recognition rules. Managing them in CRM creates reconciliation issues and introduces risk of billing errors. We keep subscriptions in Finance ERP as the master, and CRM reads subscription status for sales visibility. Renewal workflows in CRM create opportunities that link to existing ERP subscriptions. When a renewal closes, it updates the subscription term in Finance. This ensures financial data integrity while still supporting sales processes.