I'm a veteran to FP&A, and have used Excel, Oracle Hyperion/Essbase, and several other tools. And this is by far is the best. It has been the easiest to use because it's all in the cloud and doesn't require any assistance from IT or developers to make changes to your data fields and/or attributes.
Jimmy Roybal, Director of Financial Planning and Analysis, Tealium
Set revenue goals based on historical data, business drivers, and growth objectives. Plan monthly and annually recurring revenue (MRR and ARR) streams from new and renewal software subscriptions. Use revenue waterfalls to model recognition timing for subscriptions and services. And incorporate ERP and CRM sales data for a comprehensive view of revenue.
Intuitive dashboards let you continuously visualize and explore subscription revenue metrics, such as MRR and ARR, annual contract value (ACV), and average revenue per account (ARPA), so that you can accurately plan investments in marketing, development, and sales. Track and gain insights from underlying customer metrics, including customer acquisition costs (CAC), customer lifetime value (LTV), churn and renewal rates, to better understand how to grow and retain customers while reducing acquisition costs.
Create a holistic bookings forecast for new subscriptions, renewals, and services. Set subscription sales targets in concert with your sales and services teams, plan bookings by business cohorts, and use sales capacity scenarios to determine headcount needs to meet quota. Then compare the sales forecast with actual bookings using variance reports. With Workday Adaptive Planning, you can accurately forecast, track, and adjust your bookings to project your sales growth.
Plan the expense of your software operations with expense budgets based on targets, roll ups of personnel, and cost-of-sales (COS) data. Model sales rep compensation and productivity, accounting for on-boarding ramp rates, and forecast commissions based on varying attainment scenarios. Budget ongoing hosting and other operating expenses (OPEX), and determine project capital expenditures (CAPEX) for new and growing data centers. With a complete picture of SaaS expense planning, you can increase margins through the reduction of CAC and ongoing support costs.
For a SaaS company to survive and thrive, it needs to be agile and able to respond to the dynamic nature of the technology market. Watch this webinar to learn how finance teams can stay ahead of the curve by rapidly creating plans and forecasts with confidence and tracking and analyzing the key metrics that are critical for the success of any SaaS business.
Compare your budget and actuals on a monthly basis against critical financial and operational benchmarks for peer SaaS companies. Choose from detailed benchmarks for peer companies by size of revenue, growth rates, funding stage, and business model.
OPEXEngine’s SaaS benchmarks can be quickly and easily integrated into the SaaS planning and analytics solution to compare your actuals, plans, and forecasts to peer SaaS companies. Learn more at www.opexengine.com.
Use benchmark comparisons to:
Workday Adaptive Planning helps us understand the critical metrics that drive our business. It allows us to plan those into the future and understand how we are going to get to our goal.
Dan Whalen, Director of FP&A, Apptio, Inc.
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