While QuickBooks is a great bookkeeping solution for small, order-centric businesses, SaaS companies with various billing models and recurring revenue often experience growing pains as invoice and revenue schedules increase.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

  • As SaaS organizations scale, QuickBooks may not work for complicated billing structures and recurring income. Manual billing issues, inability to innovate pricing, and revenue recognition and financial reporting issues indicate upgrading is needed.
  • A SaaS CFO needs these five features in a new subscription management solution: 1). Integrated quote-to-cash, 2). Flexible contract-based billing, 3). End-to-end revenue management, 4). Real-time SaaS analytics and GAAP dashboards, 5). Forecasting and planning.
  • Sage Intacct’s subscription management technology helps SaaS organizations optimize procedures, innovate pricing, maintain compliance, get visibility, and prepare for the future.

Does This Sound Familiar?

“With 200 recurring invoices a month, we’re at the breaking point with manual billing.”

“We need to innovate our pricing, but we can’t scale it.”

“With 2,000 revenue schedules my best team member spends all her time calculating revenue recognition in spreadsheets and manually updating our general ledger.”

“I pulled an all-nighter (again!) putting together reports for investors.”

“We can’t efficiently predict our cash to manage operations and invest to drive growth and beat our competitors.”

If any of this sounds familiar, they’re clear signs you’ve outgrown QuickBooks. Once you know it’s time to move on from QuickBooks, you get to decide what’s next. Read on to discover the five essential features that every SaaS CFO needs in their next subscription management solution – and how those needs can be addressed with Sage Intacct.

The 5 Features in Subscription Management Solution

  1. Integrated quote-to-cash for streamlined processes and increased revenue per transaction.
  2. Flexible contract-based billing to reduce gross revenue churn and support innovative pricing models.
  3. End-to-end revenue management for ASC 606 compliance and reduced financial close time.
  4. Real-time SaaS metrics and GAAP dashboards for higher valuation and investor confidence.
  5. Forecasting and planning capabilities to speed up quote-to-case processing and guide strategic decisions.

Integrated Quote-to-Cash

Streamline your entire revenue process, from initial quote to final payment. This reduces errors from re-entering dates and eliminates the need for constant referencing of different record sources. You will get a more efficient, accurate, and integrated approach to managing your financial process.

Sage Intacct includes:

  • A bi-directional connection between sales and finance platforms.
  • One system of record across the entire customer lifecycle.
  • A single contract between sales and finance that streamlines the initial sale, renewals, and add-on business.
  • Acceleration of the quote-to-cash process by up to 75%.
  • Sales visibility into invoices and payments.
  • Conversion of Salesforce quotes into orders with a single click.
  • Advanced CRM Integration pre-built on the Salesforce platform.

Flexible Contract-Based Billing

From intricate pricing structures to the constant flux of renewals, upgrades, and cancellations, traditional billing solutions simply cannot handle the multifaceted nature of SaaS business models. You need a clear, unified view of your financial data with automated, subscription-centric billing to see revenue, billings, and financials in one spot – through the contract. Flexible contract-based billing eliminates the need for manual creation of custom billing structures so that you can scale your pricing models with efficiency.

Our solution includes:

  • Support for complex usage-based subscriptions.
  • Built-in handling of renewals, upgrades, downgrades, cancellations, hybrid models, services, and maintenance.
  • Flexibility to innovate, differentiate, and maximize customer lifetime value (CLTV).
  • Support for a blend of models across subscription pricing, usage billing, professional services, and perpetual licensing.
  • Management of a single revenue stream with automatic revenue recognition throughout the customer lifecycle.

End-to-End Revenue Management

By implementing this feature, you can avoid the risks associated with manual revenue recognition processes, such as compliance issues, errors in financial reporting, and time-consuming spreadsheet calculations. An end-to-end subscription revenue management system offers a single, unified view of your revenue recognition—unbilled, billed, and paid—all from the subscription contract. With built-in ASC 606 compliance, you’ll close your books faster, report more accurately, and provide the detailed insights stakeholder’s demand.

That’s why Sage Intacct includes:

  • GAAP, ASC 606, and IFRS 15 compliance.
  • Automation that can save hundreds of hours and decrease the risk of errors.
  • Configuration-based changes, reducing dependence on IT or consulting services.
  • Unlimited dimensions for detailed insights into product, region, segment, geography, and supporting data.
  • Increased investor confidence in financial reporting and timely financials, translating to higher valuations and better access to credit.

Real-Time SaaS Metrics and GAAP Dashboards

Outdated, manual reporting hinders decision-making and stakeholder communication. With Sage Intacct you have instantly generated, easy-to-use SaaS metrics and FAP dashboards that provide a real-time snapshot of your subscription business’s health.

Metrics include:

  • Tracking of the Six Cs of SaaS Metrics: CMRR, CAC, Churn, CLTV, Cash Flow and Customer Count.
  • Efficient business management—growing revenue while keeping CAC manageable, reducing churn, and increasing CLTV.
  • Higher valuation and investor trust and confidence through compelling financial storytelling.
  • Strategic leadership insights on pricing, sales, product gaps, and customer success.
  • Improved visibility into different business drivers for cohort analysis and growth opportunities.
  • Strong understanding of growth models, sales efficiency, and economics for FP&A and cash flow scenario planning.

These capabilities enable timely reporting, provide up-to-date views of business performance, and streamline the process of compiling data for investor presentations.

Forecast and Plan for the Future

Get a clear picture of your financial situation so you’re always read to adapt. Inefficient forecasting hampers strategic planning and growth. With our solution you get accurate and on-demand forecasting at the click of a button across billing, pricing, and revenue for the clarity you need to grow.

Sage Intacct Includes:

  • Comparison and modeling based on actuals—unlimited scenarios to perform ‘what-if’ analysis.
  • Guidance of strategic decisions that make your business a success, including hiring, product investment, partnerships, acquisitions, and more.
  • Connection across CRM, CPQ, and financials via the contract, to automatically generate forecasts. You get one view of your customers (vs. disparate orders) across billing, revenue recognition, and cash.
  • Shift from manual, error-prone reporting to accurate, real-time forecasts, boosting the confidence of your board and investors with accurate data.
  • Built-in tools for budgeting, planning, and financial modeling.

With these advanced forecasting capabilities, you get much better cash prediction accuracy, so you can manage operations more effectively and invest strategically to drive growth and outpace competitors.

One Platform

When you partner with LBMC W Squared and Sage Intacct you receive a unique solution built specifically for SaaS startup CFOs.

Everything you need in one platform:

  • Offers one native quote-to-cash with Salesforce CPQ.
  • Is built from the ground up to support ASC 606 and endorsed by the AICPA.
  • Provides unlimited reporting dimensions.
  • Can deploy recurring billing across perpetual, usage, and professional services.
  • Delivers prebuilt, customizable GAAP and SaaS metrics dashboards.
  • Enables a view into the future with our forecasting tools.

Empower your team, impress your investors, and accelerate your growth. Contact us today to discuss your next subscription management solution.

Written in partnership with Sage Intacct