One of the reasons many companies invest in a Configure, Price and Quote (CPQ) system is to provide a robust audit trail for their pricing decisions. Let's take a look at why, and how CPQ can help.

First, apologies if you are an auditor. I've always been on the business side - either in sales, sales management, or as a pricing manager. I can appreciate your view may be different from the other side of the controls. Perhaps by the end of this article our points of view may become closer?

At this point, a CPQ system can be the simple answer to your audit needs. All requests for discount, and the way revenue is allocated across products and services is documented. All approvals can be; attributed to an individual, time stamped, and with reasons captured at the time of approval. More importantly, the ability to show an auditor the entire history of a decision and to follow the breadcrumbs from a signed deal all the way to reported revenue at the click of a button means you have nothing to hide, and a clear understanding of the decisions. This is music to an auditor's ears. It builds trust and confidence in the process and means any anomalies can be quickly analyzed.

So, CPQ is an auditor's friend, and an auditee's friend too. It doesn't just apply to the big-scale audit requirements like SOX, but any organization that is auditable. Whether you're a telecommunications company affected by IFRS 15, an organization impacted by GDPR, or any one of a thousand other guidelines, rules or quality policies that get checked - having data and decisions stored in a CPQ system will make you love audits too.