Category: Cloud Blog

Cash is royalty, and you MUST be smart in how you manage it.  Unfortunately, SaaS budgeting and financial planning is complicated by the many moving pieces conspiring to make financial certainty elusive: user trends and sentiment, broader economic uncertainty, unique regulatory stipulations, and other factors, to mention a mere few.

In this post, we’ll explore how budgeting and forecasting combine to reduce financial uncertainty for SaaS CFOs. We’ll also discuss the importance of planning for the unexpected, accounting for deferred revenue, enhancing your data integration, and much more.

We’ll start by analyzing one of the most important relationships in the world of SaaS finance.

How does budgeting and forecasting help SaaS companies reduce uncertainty and boost ARR and MRR?

Budgeting and forecasting work in tandem to help SaaS companies minimize uncertainty and improve their growth rate, but they do so in different ways. Budgeting helps finance leaders allocate resources for a given period, ensuring there’s sufficient capital for each department’s various projects. Budgeting plays a crucial role in risk management by helping SaaS companies make sure they can handle the fluctuations that can take place in any subscription revenue business.

Forecasting has strategic implications for the budgeting process and reducing overall uncertainty, but has slightly different objectives. These include:

• Projecting revenue growth: Being able to chart your likely monthly revenue and annual recurring revenue (ARR) is integral to both SaaS budgeting and broader FP&A. Similarly, forecasting also helps you anticipate new customers, revenue contraction, and other financial trends.
• Optimizing the billing process: Selecting the best SaaS billing model for your company is essential in reducing long-term uncertainty. Seamless and strategic billing plays a large role in keeping churn to a minimum by providing a great customer experience. Automated forecasting makes it easy to compare the long-term results of different billing models, and automated reporting helps you see which of your current billing options customers prefer.

• Helping you manage cash correctly by growth stage: As a SaaS CFO, you’ll have different priorities and goals depending on what stage of the business lifecycle you’re in. Are you pre-seed or seed and trying to establish a product-market fit? Or are you more mature and working on finetuning your revenue model or even expanding internationally? Forecasting helps finance leaders navigate each growth stage optimally.

By combining SaaS budgeting and forecasting, CFOs can make informed decisions, adapt quickly to changes, and stay competitive. Let’s peel back a few more layers. How else can this symbiotic pair of financial processes improve your company’s financial performance by reducing uncertainty?

Planning for the unexpected with accounting automation

Planning for the unexpected is crucial for SaaS companies. Extrapolating market trends and historical data into the future is one of the major ways forecasting reduces uncertainty for organizations. Automated forecasting also makes scenario planning as simple as entering your starting data and clicking a button.

Running “If-then” scenario tests is central to reducing doubt about your company’s financial future. What if there’s a sudden large-scale churn event? Will your cash on hand cover your needs while your subscription revenue recovers? Question-based scenario testing is one of the best routes to certainty for finance leaders.

Accounting for deferred revenue through SaaS forecasting

Since SaaS companies recognize revenue in a unique way, accounting for deferred revenue through SaaS forecasting is vital. Managing the demands of ASC 606 is a big piece of that, and is a much smoother experience with the help of financial automation.

By accurately forecasting deferred revenue, finance leaders can manage their cash flow effectively and avoid budget shortfalls.

Risks of spreadsheet-based budgeting and forecasting

Manual budgeting and forecasting processes pose significant risks to your department’s effectiveness and the health of your whole organization. Manual processes are time-consuming and prone to errors that need to be corrected, wasting even more time and cash. Manual methods don’t allow for real-time updates or adjustments, and inaccurate budgeting and forecasting can lead to financial instability and missed growth opportunities.

None of this bodes well for SaaS companies. Let’s check out financial automation for comparison purposes. Is it better at slicing uncertainty down to size?

Benefits of automating your SaaS budgeting and planning

Automating your SaaS budgeting and FP&A benefits your business in several important ways. Let’s review some of the most important of those.

Slashing manual financial processes. 

Automation eliminates manual data entry and calculations, resulting in greater accuracy and reliability.

Centralize your data and streamline workflows.

Integrating all your CRM, ERP, and billing data into a centralized system ensures seamless SaaS forecasts and eliminates the risk of errors.

Unlocking real-time insights and more robust forecasts.

Automated budgeting and planning provide real-time visibility into your SaaS revenue and financial performance, enabling you to make data-driven decisions. Automated forecasting models can generate lower-variance revenue projections by effortlessly incorporating historical data, market trends, and various SaaS metrics.

Investing in automated software solutions for SaaS forecasting and budgeting can significantly enhance your department’s financial planning and growth prospects. However, not all accounting suites are on equal footing.

Cloud-enabled vs. cloud-native financial planning software (and why the distinction matters for your finance team)

Cloud-native and cloud-enabled SaaS budgeting options may sound similar, but there are some essential differences that CFOs need to consider before making a purchase. Let’s briefly compare both types of tech.

1. Cloud-enabled accounting software

Cloud-enabled SaaS budgeting refers to a traditional budgeting solution re-hosted in the cloud. This is known as a “lift and shift” application. Although it sounds innovative, it’s more of a jerry-rigged approach than a true innovation. In practice, cloud-enabled software often isn’t up to the complicated automated workflows that modern SaaS accounting requires.

2. Cloud-native accounting software

On the other hand, cloud-native SaaS budgeting solutions are specifically designed for cloud use. They offer much more flexibility, scalability, and real-time data integration. And unlike cloud-enabled solutions, you’ll never get halfway through a forecast model and suddenly have the whole thing short out on you.

Trusting your company’s budgeting and FP&A to cloud-enabled solutions could ultimately produce more uncertainty instead of less. What else should you consider if you’re looking to embrace automation to maximize your budgeting and FP&A results?

How to automate SaaS budgeting and FP&A

Automating SaaS budgeting and financial planning is essential for helping departments streamline processes and ensure accurate revenue projections. Collaborating with key stakeholders is vital for anything affecting the budgeting process. Budgeting and FP&A impact every team at your company, so even a positive change like automation needs to be discussed inclusively.

But going deeper, what do you need to be mindful of as a SaaS CFO while automating your company’s budgeting and planning?

Integrate CRM, ERP, and billing data for seamless SaaS forecasts

Integrating all CRM, ERP, and billing data is crucial for reducing uncertainty with seamless SaaS budgeting and forecasts. By centralizing and analyzing customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and billing data, you have all the data you need for decision-making in one spot.

Financial data integration enables accurate revenue forecasting, efficient resource allocation, and optimized marketing efforts. Cloud-native accounting software automatically pulls all your data together in the deployment process.

Identify vital KPIs (and potential problems) for optimized SaaS forecasting

You need to identify the key profit drivers behind your business to fine-tune your forecasting and ensure low-variance predictions after the switch to automation. You can make truly impactful decisions by delving into factors such as customer acquisition costs, churn rates, and average revenue per user, and determining which one has an outsized effect on your company’s performance. Automated role-based dashboards put all the metrics you need right at your fingertips.

After identifying your profit drivers, remember to prioritize them in your forecasting efforts. Additionally, analyzing historical data and mapping out trends while they’re still young allows you to uncover underlying issues or areas for improvement.

Use SaaS metrics to predict bookings, downgrades, churn, and more

Remember to forecast expansions and upgrades, downgrades, and churn in your SaaS business by leveraging the correct metrics. Automated forecasting is extremely powerful, but it’s only as effective as the data you feed it.

Specifically, remember to leverage these core KPIs:

• Expansion & contraction MRR: Your monthly recurring revenue (MRR) tells you the amount of committed subscription revenue you have each month. Your expansion and contraction MRR are essential subsets of that. Expansion MRR tells you how much money you gained in a given month through subscription upgrades and account expansions, while contraction MRR tells you how much you lost to downgrades.
• Voluntary & involuntary churn: Churn occurs when a user unsubscribes from your service, and there are two different types. Voluntary churn is when someone purposely unsubscribes, but involuntary churn occurs when a user’s payment method lapses and they fail to update it on time. Automation plays an important role in minimizing both varieties of churn.
• CAC to CLTV ratio: A SaaS company’s customer acquisition cost (CAC) indicates the average cost of obtaining each customer, while the customer lifetime value (CLTV) tells you how much each customer spends before churning. Both are essential metrics in their own right, but an outstanding CAC to CLTV ratio is the true benchmark of superior performance.

Now we’ll look at five actionable tactics you can use to slash uncertainty for your SaaS business.

Forecasting and budgeting to cut uncertainty: a quick template for CFOs

Now that you know more about automating your SaaS budgeting and financial planning successfully, here are five tips for cutting financial uncertainty through forecasting and budgeting.

1. Plan accurately for revenue recognition on multi-year contracts

Accurately planning for revenue recognition on multi-year contracts is essential for SaaS companies. These contracts can be complex, as revenue recognition may occur over a long period with multiple layers of service obligations to consider. Automation makes it easy to keep track of deferred revenue waterfalls and their impact on your budget.

CFOs need to carefully review the terms of these contracts and determine the appropriate timing and method of recognizing revenue. Be mindful of potential changes or risks that could impact the revenue recognition process: contract amendments, changes in market conditions, or similar factors. By accurately forecasting and budgeting for revenue recognition, CFOs can reduce uncertainty and ensure their business remains financially stable.

2. Centralize and automate to eliminate shadow IT

One of the most important reasons to integrate and automate your financial data is that it helps you boost your cash flow by cutting shadow IT. Any application that your company no longer uses but unintentionally keeps paying for is considered shadow IT.

Enterprise subscriptions can get quite pricey, and neglecting even a few recurring subscriptions can produce a sizable hit to your cash flow. Centralizing your data in the cloud puts everything in front of you, allowing you to see what you need and don’t.

3. Get granular about your pipeline performance and your various sale cycles

Analyzing and breaking down your sales cycles into smaller segments allows you to identify trends, patterns, and key metrics that impact your sales performance. This enables you to make data-driven decisions based on the specific dynamics of each sales cycle, including seasonality, customer behavior, and market trends.

Also, give your pipeline a closer look. Are there parts of it that are converting particularly well, or any spots that could use some help?

4. Aim for a slow burn (especially in a recession)

Your SaaS company’s burn rate is one of the most essential metrics for ensuring positive cash flow. Essentially, your burn rate tells you your total expenses: how much money are you spending each month, and how long can you keep that up with the cash you have available?

5. Think ahead and prioritize seamless scaling

When scaling your SaaS business, thinking proactively and planning ahead for seamless growth is essential. By selecting SaaS solutions built to accommodate future growth and increased demand, you can avoid the constant need to switch and upgrade software.

Get revenue forecasting and budgeting advice from SaaS finance and accounting pros

Optimizing your revenue forecast activity, sales pipeline projections, and budgeting processes are all essential to cutting uncertainty to the absolute minimum. For SaaS CFOs, automation is the most straightforward pathway to doing that because it integrates your data, finetunes your forecasting, and equips you with robust financial analytics all in one fell swoop. But do you and your team know how to work with these tools in the first 90 days post-deployment and beyond? How to scale in a sustainable way that matches the needs of your growth stage? How to confidently build and forecast different billing models?

All of this plays a central role in reducing financial uncertainty for SaaS organizations. If you want to learn more about managing uncertainty and winning your market, the Modern SaaS Finance Academy has what you want. Featuring dozens of cutting-edge digital lessons taught by SaaS finance and accounting pros, you’ll learn everything from automating and forecasting different billing models to building the ideal tech stack, mastering financial storytelling, and much more.

You can start learning today by clicking here.  Patterned off the success of the Hubspot Academy, but for SaaS CFOs, Controllers, RevOps, FP&A, and CEOs, it is free and offers the option of CPE credits.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are crucial in managing most business processes, making the selection of an ERP system critical for organizations.

Navigating the myriad ERP solutions, many companies or CFOs hire ERP selection consultants for their expertise, often paying $20,000-$100,000 in the middle market for help picking the right system for their needs.

However, these consultants, like any other professionals, are susceptible to biases that influence the outcome of the selection process. Some are so biased they act as paid spokespeople for a particular vendor.

In this blog, we will explore five biases that can arise in ERP selection consultants and their impact on the decision-making process.

1. Vendor affiliations create a conflict of interest: ERP selection consultants often have established relationships with specific vendors or resellers. These relationships can create a bias toward recommending those vendors, even if they may not fit the organization’s needs best. Consultants often receive financial incentives or perks from vendors, consciously or subconsciously affecting their recommendations.

Most common is the same ERP selection consultant being paid to implement the chosen software, adding thousands of dollars of revenue for themselves if a particular vendor is selected over another.

It is important for organizations to be aware of these affiliations and question the motives behind consultant recommendations.

2. Preconceived notions about industry standards: ERP selection consultants may have preconceived notions about industry standards and best practices. While experience and expertise are valuable, rigid adherence to industry norms can lead to overlooking alternative solutions that could better fit a particular organization.

Consultants must remain open-minded and consider diverse options to ensure an unbiased selection process.

3. Confirmation bias: All people, including ERP selection consultants, may develop a bias towards confirming their initial beliefs or assumptions. This bias can hinder exploring alternative options and limit the range of choices presented to the organization.

Organizations should require consultants to share what percentage of their client base chose each available ERP solution. If they always recommend the same solution, what are you paying for?

4. Limited knowledge or experience: ERP selection consultants may lack comprehensive knowledge or experience across various ERP systems. Requests from consultants new to a particular industry or unfamiliar with best-in-class cloud functionality available. This limitation can lead to biases favoring solutions they are more familiar with or have previously implemented.

Organizations should ensure that consultants have a deep understanding of various ERP systems and experience working with diverse clients.

5. Overemphasis on Technical Features: ERP selection consultants often focus heavily on technical features and functionalities while neglecting the importance of the organization’s unique requirements and strategic goals. This bias can result in a mismatch between the selected ERP system and the organization’s needs.

Consultants should prioritize understanding the organization’s business processes and aligning the selection criteria with the strategic objectives.

Final thoughts

Selecting the right ERP system is crucial for the success of any organization, and ERP selection consultants can provide valuable guidance throughout the process. However, it is important to recognize that both deliberate and unconscious biases can influence their recommendations.

Organizations must approach the selection process with skepticism, actively questioning and challenging the recommendations provided.

By fostering open communication, encouraging diverse perspectives, and ensuring consultants consider a broad range of options, you can mitigate biases and make informed decisions that align with your unique requirements.

SaaS FP&A is the ticket to ensuring long-term growth and profitability for software companies.

Whether you have a dedicated FP&A team or you’re handling those responsibilities as the CFO, this post will help you:

• Understand why optimized FP&A is fundamental to your organization’s success.
• Pave the way to profitable planning and analysis at your firm.

Let’s begin.

Why is data all-important in FP&A?

In order to achieve optimal results from your FP&A, it’s vital to have access to as much financial data as possible. After all, acquiring financial data is the first step in analyzing it.

Organizations that rely on manual accounting technology often find themselves in a vicious cycle.

With the best of intentions, they collect what little financial data they can. Then they analyze it through the lens of present goals, run forecasts with it, and otherwise put it to use.

But FP&A is a lot like life itself: you largely get out of it what you put into it. Finance professionals who come to the table with incomplete or unhygienic data are setting themselves and their companies up for failure–or, at the very least, highly ineffective SaaS FP&A

What objectives should you have when conducting financial analysis?

The primary goals of FP&A in SaaS finance

Modern SaaS FP&A is conducted with a few core goals in mind.

We’ll go into much more detail about specific FP&A functions below. But the broader goals underlying those processes include:

• Helping companies understand the likely financial outcomes of various plans.
• Identifying companies’ main profit drivers for optimal resource allocation.
• Supplying organizations with a comprehensive and updated view of their essential financial information.

How, specifically, do SaaS FP&A teams achieve all this?

Revenue & billing forecasting

Revenue forecasting is the lifeblood of profitable sales campaigns, pricing rollouts, billing adjustments, and much more.

A cardinal rule of effective financial management is that you always look (then look again) before you leap.

Cloud-native financial management software makes revenue forecasting as simple as entering your data and clicking a button.

Forecasting in the cloud enables further-reaching, more reliable forecasting for:

• Hybrid billing experimentation
• Pricing new products and features
• Extrapolating usage trends into the future and much more

FP&A also plays a vital role in effective hiring for SaaS organizations.

Hiring decisions and department headcounts

Hasty hiring can be costly in terms of both time and cash. FP&A helps companies make profitable hires in a few different ways.

Preventing overhiring 

Without detailed FP&A, it can be tricky for SaaS companies to gauge the precise scope of their hiring needs in various departments.

Clearly establishing goals 

“We need more people here” is not a strategic hiring statement. FP&A establishes concrete outcomes to aim for and keeps you from making regrettable moves.

Providing team and department headcounts

Once the hiring process is underway, your FP&A team will also carry out headcounts. This helps SaaS CFOs keep an ongoing and updated sense of how their hiring results are shaping up relative to their budget and expectations.

Reporting on metrics and KPIs

FP&A is inextricably tied to your SaaS metrics. The more exhaustive your library of KPIs and metrics, the more detailed and profitable your financial analysis will be.

Manual accounting software is often unequipped with the full range of KPIs necessary to thrive in today’s competitive SaaS market.

When you equip your FP&A team with cloud-native financial management software, you’ll never have to worry about missing metrics.

Automation will help your team fully understand how all your various KPIs work together and impact each other in real time.

Budgeting optimally and minimizing variance

Budget variance is a massive impediment to SaaS profitability. What’s more, if you repeatedly miss the mark on budgeting, it won’t be long before your board takes notice.

A strong investment in FP&A can help you hit your budgeting goals by:

• Providing real-time variance alerts: Cloud-based accounting software automatically alerts your team when you’re approaching budget milestones too quickly.
• Enabling detailed budget forecasts: Forecasting removes the guesswork from SaaS budgeting–because when it comes to setting budgets, no one likes surprises.
• Ensuring proper allocations: Failure to achieve proper budget allocations can cause serious capital shortfalls in your company. It’s hard to stay profitable unless you can put the right resources to work at the right place, at the right time.

Cloud-native financial management software helps CFOs and finance professionals eliminate budget variance.

Enhance your SaaS FP&A effectiveness today

In many ways, FP&A acts as the foundation of SaaS accounting success. Maximizing the FP&A function and surrounding technologies such as automation allows leaders to confidently chart their course for effective financial decision-making.

FP&A may serve as the foundation of accounting success. But when you’re building a house, you don’t stop at the foundation. That’s why we created the Modern SaaS Finance Academy, an online academy designed to help you learn vital skills that will set you apart from the competition in the coming years.

Join the academy today.

When economic uncertainty strikes, turn to your metrics and KPIs. They offer an objective touchpoint during times when everything else is up in the air.

This post is all about why metrics matter during a market correction. We’ll explain why metrics are so essential for SaaS financial health (in all markets but particularly in poor ones), and then cover 5 of the most important KPIs to watch during a dip.

How do metrics help when certainty drops?

Since SaaS CFOs are human beings just like the rest of us, their decisions are colored by emotions.

This means that unless you’re either very careful or very disciplined, it’s incredibly easy to make impulsive and fear-based decisions in a downturn.

And since it’s easier to be unclear than to remain disciplined in scary situations, putting up “guardrails” in the form of SaaS metrics is invaluable.

That way, any time you have a thought or a plan you suspect might be influenced by fear of external conditions, you can check it against your metrics.

Optimal financial leadership during a recession means being proactive rather than reactive–and that starts with your metrics. Below are 5 of the most crucial metrics to watch in times of uncertainty.

1: CAC to CLTV ratio

Your customer acquisition cost (CAC) and customer lifetime value (CLTV) are two extremely important KPIs.

Your CAC tells you how much you’re spending on average to acquire each customer, and your CLTV tells you how much money your users are spending with you before they churn.

During an economic dip, you need to keep a very close eye on your CAC to CLTV ratio. Do everything you can to reduce your CAC and get your CLTV as high as possible.

Some techniques for doing that include:

• Experimenting with different billing and pricing methods.
• Carefully observing usage trends to identify what’s working and what’s not.
• Reducing subscription upkeep costs by embracing financial process automation.

What other metrics should be on your radar in uncertain times?

2: Monthly recurring revenue

Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is one of your most essential revenue metrics during a downturn. It measures the amount of committed monthly revenue you’re generating from existing subscriptions.

Drumming up new customers is essential too, but capital preservation and customer retention are more profitable for most companies in a recession (or pre-recession market).

Cloud-based financial software makes tracking and improving your MRR simple and seamless.

3: Churn

Churn simply cannot be tolerated when the markets are poor. SaaS accounting automation can help you proactively manage both types of churn.

Voluntary churn: Early intervention is the key to preventing voluntary churn. AI enables finance teams to carefully track and forecast churn rates to easily identify users who are likely to churn soon. Once you’ve identified them, you can send that data over to sales for customer success outreach.

Involuntary churn: Involuntary churn occurs when users need to update their payment data and their card gets declined. Once a user’s card declines, cloud-native accounting software can send out automatic emails asking that person to update their payment info.

Staying on top of both types of churn is an absolute necessity in subpar markets.

4: Trial health

Trial health measures the percentage of users who converted to a full subscription after signing up for a free trial.

It’s usually expressed as a percentage and can be found by dividing the total number of trial conversions for a given period by the total number of trial signups for that same period.

So, for instance, if you achieved 3,300 conversions across 3,500 free trials in the previous quarter, your trial health for that period would be 94%.

Free trials are a great way to create more business in times of uncertainty, but only if they’re measured and managed proactively.

5: Cash burn rate

Your cash burn rate (CBR) tells you how long your cash reserve will last given your revenue and liabilities.

It’s broken down into three pieces:

• Gross burn rate: Your gross burn rate measures your company’s expenses. Just total up your average monthly liabilities, and you’ve got your gross burn.
• Net burn rate: To find your net burn rate, subtract your monthly expenses from your monthly revenue.
• Cash runway: To calculate your cash runway, divide your current bank holdings by your net burn rate. Your cash runway is usually expressed in months.

The three parts of your cash burn rate work together to provide a clear picture of your cash coming in and going out. More importantly, it offers a precise gauge of how much financial leeway you have in light of those two realities.

Making the most of your metrics

In order to develop a truly profitable relationship with your metrics during a downturn, it helps to follow a few best practices.

Make sure everyone understands why KPIs matter

If everyone in your department is fully aware of the strategic importance of KPIs, it will be much easier to keep things from slipping through the cracks.

Optimize your SaaS finance tech stack

Opting for modern accounting software gives teams much more freedom to interact with their metrics.

Embrace financial process automation 

Manual reporting and forecasting around SaaS metrics are ineffective and potentially costly.

You can’t control the state of the markets. But as a SaaS CFO, you can certainly control how your department responds to those conditions.

Thrive in any market by investing in yourself

When it comes to achieving SaaS accounting success and long-term profitability, very few things matter more than your metrics. When market conditions are poor, fear tends to creep in and become a larger influence in decision-making. Your SaaS metrics provide an objective reference point to keep that from happening, allowing you to operate confidently at all times.

To learn more about how you can lead with confidence and clarity in and out of recessions, join the Modern SaaS Finance Academy. It’s an online academy designed by SaaS finance and accounting leaders at the forefront of the industry. Each course was created to help you gain the skills and perspectives you need to guarantee success in the coming years–topics include forecasting for fundraising, frameworks for reporting to your board, innovative AR designs, and much more.

Join today and level up your SaaS finance career.

Recently, I sat in on a financial-services session at our annual Sage Transform conference for Sage Intacct customers and partners. The session focused on family offices, and one of the panelists, a CFO at a firm with dozens of multiple entities,  described her journey building the firm’s financial tech stack. She spoke of taking months to analyze their business processes so their automation efforts would get it right the first time. Her elegant summary was, “we went slow to go fast.” Brilliant.

During my flights back and forth to the conference, I read a great Winston Churchill biography, in which he was quoted to have said (and I paraphrase a bit) “…the longer one looks back, the further ahead one can see.”

Look back to look forward. Go slow to go fast. Great ideas when it comes to automation. With technologies such as robotic process automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, it’s tempting to jump in with abandon. Here’s another phrase that I’ve long adhered to: “A bad process that’s automated is now an automated bad process.”

My point is that going slow, taking your time, and doing it right is essential. Looking back to analyze what’s worked and finding ways to streamline processes will reap great rewards. A systematic review and a deliberate phased-in approach are more advantageous than “ready-fire-aim.”

There are some great places to start automation, including accounts payable, billing, payroll and tax compliance. Let’s look at each to find ways to go slow to go fast.

Accounts Payable Automation

One of the first processes accounting departments look to automate is accounts payable. Typically, the AP process includes receipt of the purchase order from the purchasing department, receipt of the invoice from the vendor, comparing the PO to the invoice to match and validate accuracy, and then paying the vendor. Some organizations use a two-way match while others use a three-way match to check the goods receipt.

While the process itself might be easy, it’s time-consuming lacking automation. (It might be easy, but no one has said it’s simple.) Depending on what you purchase (think goods or services), your AP process is most likely well-defined, but likely not without challenges that may include:

• Matching errors
• Exception management
• Missing documents
• Double payments
• Delayed payments
• Unnecessary or unauthorized purchases
• Theft and fraud

Automating AP offers the opportunity to significantly cut costs. Most studies put the cost to manually process an invoice at around $20, when factoring in time spent, error reconciliation, approvals and fully loaded labor costs. By automating AP, the cost per invoice drops by 90%.  For example, if you’re processing 2,000 invoices a month, the potential cost savings is $36,000 per month.

So how do you go slow to go fast? One area to review is the approval process. Depending on the amount of the invoice, you may have two or more levels of approval. Take a look at these levels and the number of invoices in each and see if there’s an opportunity to adjust the levels without adding risk. Also, look at who is approving invoices as the manager approving the invoice should be a different person than the individual approving payments.  If you don’t have it today, document your approvals matrix to define who the approvers are, their timelines to approve and who the secondary approvers are in their absences. This will make it easier to set up the right rules when automating routing, so you can create “if-then” rules. Of course, exceptions will happen, but AP automation can dramatically reduce the outliers and speed up the payments process.

Billing Automation

An automated billing system invoices customers without significant manual intervention. The system is ideal for businesses that charge customers a recurring amount every month through a subscription or retainer model. With automated pricing models and billing templates that match your business, you can “set it and forget it.” You get bills out faster, decrease days sales outstanding, and free up cash to grow your business. By driving your billing, revenue, and financials from a single source—the contract—you can manage a single revenue stream and automatically recognize revenue throughout the customer lifecycle. Contract changes, including renewals, upsells, downgrades and holds, drive automatic updates to revenue recognition, billing and your financials so that they are aligned. You save time, eliminate errors and reduce confusion.

For example, real-time bidirectional synchronization between Salesforce and your financials allows you to maintain templates and schedules in your financial solution while maintaining customers, contracts, changes and renewals in Salesforce. Billing and payments are easily visible to salespeople all in one place. Everyone stays up to date with your customers’ financial relationship to provide a more consistent customer experience.

Software-as-a-service is a great candidate for billing automation. Professional services and medical offices can also benefit from implementing an automated billing system, even if they don’t charge a uniform amount to clients and patients. Automated billing systems operate by invoicing customers and accepting payment or automatically charging customers with an on-file payment method.

Billing is another opportunity to go slow to go fast. There are some obvious business models where billing automation plays well, but your business might have less-than-easily apparent places where automation makes a lot of sense. For example, my local car wash offers a subscription package for unlimited car washes in addition to one-time charges. Using an automated billing system, they wouldn’t have to worry about manually processing the recurring charge.

Look at your invoices to find recurring charges to customers and clients, then automate these to cut costs.  More importantly, this can improve your cash flow.

Payroll Automation

Automating payroll all but eliminates the most labor-intensive aspects of the payroll process. Specific features vary from one provider to the next, but employers should be able to:

• Calculate wages earned
• Integrate payroll with time and attendance
• Withhold taxes and other deductions
• Pay employees
• Run payroll reports
• Access important tax forms

For example, payroll managers can automatically synchronize new employee records, managerial hierarchies and changes to employee information or status. As well, hierarchies synchronize across solutions and approval workflows, expenses, timesheets, journal entries and purchasing. These are automatically set up or updated once an employee is created or changes jobs. This allows you to generate payroll journal entries that accurately map to your general ledger. As well, it eliminates the need to manually key-in payroll journal entries or build and maintain complex integrations to accurately map payroll journal entries to your general ledger. With just a few clicks, you can automatically prepare and push payroll journal entries, including dimensions, so they fit into your existing chart of accounts and increase the ease of reporting.

One way to go slow to go fast is to ensure every employee, regardless of role, is correctly mapped and associated with cost centers, so as that employee moves within or exits the organization, payroll expenses are properly allocated. In some cases, it might mean creating new cost centers. Changes in employee roles might also lead to splitting allocations, so it makes sense to predefine these splits by role.

Another word on payroll. You might be using a popular payroll service today. If so, your “go slow” step might be looking at whether that service can integrate with a general ledger platform.

Tax Compliance

The process of manually managing the collection, calculation, and filing of taxes is problematic at best and a nightmare as companies scale and grow. Your company might be selling more goods and services in more places and ways than ever before. On top of that, tax rates are constantly changing. In the United States alone, there are hundreds of changes each year.

Chances are you’re already using some type of automation to help with tax compliance as the risks associated with noncompliance are great.   With that said, in a recent report IDC listed some questions you should be asking of your current vendor or any vendor touting tax compliance. Some of these questions include:

• Does the vendor have experience with my type of product, service and company size?
• Is the vendor knowledgeable about financial regulations and guidelines both locally and globally as they affect my company?
• Does the vendor understand the regulations that will impact my business? How are these regulations reflected in my current product and how will it change in the future?
• Can the vendor integrate with my company’s other IT systems and those of my partners?
• Will the vendor be a partner, helping my business grow now and in the long term?

Good questions to ask and not just of a tax-compliance vendor. These could apply to any vendor in your financial tech stack.

Why Automate? 

If the complexities of accounts payable, billing, payroll, tax compliance and other financial processes aren’t enough to convince you to automate, let me share some reasons why you should look to automation to go fast.

• Automation cuts cost. Manual tasks, including account reconciliation and variance analysis, can turn into deep pits and you can avoid these with automation. Often, we talk about automation as a time saver, but I believe the cost reductions that result are more significant. Sure, we all want a faster close or continuous close, but taking cost out of these processes moves money to the bottom line.
• Automation reduces the chances for human error.  And if you go slow to go fast, you can greatly reduce the opportunities for any errors, human or otherwise. There will always be some percentage of outliers, but that percentage goes way down when you deploy smart, intelligent, purpose-built automation.
• Automation reduces the opportunity for fraud. Let’s face it, fraud happens. It might not be your number-one concern as you trust your colleagues, but it happens, nevertheless. And though you’ve vetted your vendors, there are humans at the other end of that invoice. Automation with outlier detection greatly reduces your risks.
• Automation ensures consistency. As you go slow to go fast, you’re going to discover that everyone has a slightly different way of doing things. Two persons might have different ways of approaching something as cut-and-dry as double-entry bookkeeping. Automating processes creates greater consistency within teams, reducing the chances of mistakes and information gaps.
• Automation gives you faster access to the information you need to make data-driven decisions. This is the biggest benefit of all and enables you to be more strategic.  You can get fast access to real-time key performance indicators to drive your business forward.

I’ve outlined just four processes where you can go slow to go fast. Others include expense management, commission tracking, bank reconciliation, contract management, revenue recognition and many more, but remember – a bad process automated is an automated bad process. Take your time and enjoy the rewards of getting it right from the start.

P.S.  If you’re interested in the Churchill biography, let me know and I’ll pass along the title and author.

Customers rated Sage Intacct #1 in customer satisfaction for the 9th year in a row, in the newly released G2 Winter 2023 Reports. Sage Intacct soared to great heights winning 106 awards, including 23 #1 rankings in Grid and Index Reports.

These results are testimony to our dedication to build authentic human connections. After all, Sage Intacct is all about people–we listen to our customers and value their input. We provide people with the insight they need to build their businesses, and flow at work, with simple and straightforward products. It is a huge honor to be ranked at the top in so many categories, thanks to our community of users, partners, and colleagues.

Here are some highlights of the winter report:

Sage Intacct places #1 in 7 Grid Reports

The independently validated reviews of users ranked Sage Intacct #1 in 7 Grid Reports, which are awarded for customer satisfaction, popularity, market presence, and more.

• Mid-Market Nonprofit Accounting
• Mid-Market Subscription Management
• Mid-Market Subscription Revenue Management
• Mid-Market Subscription Billing
• Enterprise Revenue Management
• Enterprise AP Automation
• Overall AP Automation

Sage Intacct ranks #1 in 14 Index Reports

We earned the top spot in 14 Index Reports for the usability of our products, relationships we build, quality of support, and more. We are especially excited about these rankings because we had a huge jump, earning more than twice the amount this quarter compared to last quarter.

• Implementation Index Enterprise ERP Systems
• Results Index Enterprise Accounting
• Results Index Overall ERP Systems
• Results Index Mid-Market ERP Systems
• Results Index Enterprise ERP Systems
• Relationship Index Overall Nonprofit Accounting
• Relationship Index Mid-Market Subscription Billing
• Relationship Index Mid-Market Revenue Management
• Relationship Index Enterprise AP Automation
• Usability Index Overall Project-Based ERP
• Usability Index Mid-Market Subscription Management
• Usability Index Mid-Market Subscription Billing
• Usability Index Enterprise Accounting
• Usability Index Enterprise ERP Systems

Sage Intacct takes 1st place in 2 Momentum Grid Reports

G2 also awarded us 1st place on 2 Momentum Grid Reports for year-over-year change in employee growth, review growth, social growth, and web growth.

• Nonprofit Accounting
• Project-Based ERP

Sage Intacct ranks #1 in Customer Satisfaction in 17 categories

Sage Intacct rated #1 in Customer Satisfaction over all true competitors in a whopping 17 categories this winter. Users LOVE Sage Intacct!

• Overall Project-Based ERP
• Overall ERP Systems
• Overall Revenue Management
• Mid-Market Accounting
• Mid-Market Nonprofit Accounting
• Mid-Market Project-Based ERP
• Mid-Market Subscription Management
• Mid-Market Subscription Billing
• Mid-Market Revenue Management
• Enterprise Accounting
• Enterprise Project-Based ERP
• Enterprise Revenue Management
• Enterprise AP Automation
• Small Business Project-Based ERP
• Momentum ERP Systems
• Momentum Project-Based ERP
• Momentum Revenue Management

This customer satisfaction score is based on things like how easy it is to use our product, set it up, and work with us, as well as how likely customers are to recommend us, and more. We are grateful for our customers’ support and honest feedback.

Sage Intacct wins 83 additional awards

On top of all that, Sage Intacct received 83 awards and regional recognition for our strong placement on reports across various market sizes. Included are 41 Leader awards for being in the Leader quadrant in various categories such as Accounting and Revenue Management. We also won multiple Easiest to Use badges for earning the highest Ease of Use rating in its category, as well as a ton of other badges such as High Performer in India and Europe. You’ll hear from our customers following these award details so be sure to keep reading.

How we help customers

The winter reports were a sweeping success. It’s proof that our customers are happy, and Sage Intacct is the best choice for cloud financial management.

Sage Intacct helps finance professionals automate manual tasks such as issuing and processing invoices, keeping track of budgets, creating financial reports, and more. Revenue recognition, your close, and metrics can all be done automatically and with accuracy. Automation frees up time so finance professionals can focus on strategic, higher value work that’s more engaging. We help accounting continue to thrive and make people more productive by finding their flow. Sage Intacct truly elevates the work lives of people.

Our customers LOVE us

Of course, the best way to understand how we help companies and why customers love Sage Intacct is to listen to what they have to say…

Outstanding software for financial reporting!

“One of my favorite features of (Sage) Intacct is its ability to create duplicate invoices and make simplifications (in) the invoice process easily. When modifying a journal entry, rather than having to determine which account to record it in, you can return to a previous entry and change the numbers there. Additionally, exporting data into Excel is a very convenient feature of this software. We rely significantly on Excel exports from the built-in export function within Sage Intacct. Overall, Sage Intacct has proved itself as an exceptional resource–particularly for month-end reconciliation and invoice verification before payment tasks.”

— Liz C, Controller, Small Business

Excellent money management software

“The best things about Sage Intacct Dashboard are the financial reporting, user-friendly layout, and real-time report generation. I’m glad it’s used extensively in our accounting group because it makes changes easy to track and revert if needed. Using the help center is thorough and easy to use, which is excellent when confidence in one’s ability to make alterations without harming process flow is lacking. Being able to modify journal lines immediately is a nice feature as well.”

— Tiju T, Regional Account Manager, Small Business

Sage Intacct is the real deal application for accounting and financial management

“Sage Intacct is an excellent and outstanding solution for accounting which enables us to quicken our accounting processes. It is super easy and fast to implement, set up, and get started with. I like the fact that it is highly customizable to suit your needs. Also, since we started using it, we have been able to avoid human errors since everything is done digitally. I like the cloud-based platform which is amazing and great.”

— Audrey J, Senior Accountant, Mid-Market Company

Best solution for cloud software

“I have used Sage for the last 3 years in 2 different companies. I couldn’t be happier than this. I can do my job from every corner of the globe, at any time. It is fast and easy to navigate. The best part is the import and the integration with other software. Basically, it takes me 30 seconds to import a journal entry that would take me 30 minutes to enter in QB (QuickBooks). I had experienced data loss in the past with QuickBooks, and data integrity was my problem. Not anymore. I would never work with another software after I tried Sage Intacct.”

— Silvana G, Assistant Controller, Small Business

Sage Intacct is the perfect solution for venture-funded startups

“What I like best about Sage Intacct is the readability and comprehensiveness of its reports. Before submitting an account, you can make any necessary modifications or deletions without needing to export the information to Excel first to manipulate it by adding and removing data and calculations. This saves a great deal of time. It is invaluable to know members of our board are confident in the reports we provide them–understanding the findings–while not requiring us to adjust the pieces manually.”

— Lisa W, Director of Finance, Enterprise Company

Sage Intacct is a valuable resource

“The best things I like about Sage Intacct are its powerful reporting features and how you can “customize” the data. The software is also easy to pick up and operate due to its aesthetic design. Another great thing is that Sage (Intacct) users can combine their software with those of other industry giants. Our organization has integrated Sage (Intacct) with various applications, such as Expensify and Bill.com. For the most part, Sage Intacct has exceeded my expectations. I’m delighted we made the transfer to it from our old accounting software.”

— Wendy C, FP&A Manager, Enterprise Company

We would like to take this time to thank our customers for taking the time to share their honest feedback on G2. We value your voice and appreciate your time.

Why we use G2

Now that you’ve heard from customers, we would like to share why G2 is more than just proof points. G2 is the leading platform for software reviews. It collects and analyzes feedback of customers and shares the results each quarter in Grid Reports. These Grid Reports help us understand how well our products are serving our customers. This information is important to us because we are driven to create ground-breaking solutions to help organizations and the people behind them and meet and exceed their needs.

G2 is also a valuable resource for technology shoppers. The review platform gets 80 million buyers coming to their site annually. G2 helps buyers make informed decisions on what to purchase for their organizations based on customers testimonials. The reviews influence their decisions. In fact, according to G2, 86% of software buyers use peer review sites when purchasing software, and 100% of Fortune 500 businesses use G2 to discover new software.

We are inspired with the results of the G2 Winter 2023 Grid Reports. They motivate us to continue to improve. In the coming year, Sage Intacct will continue to build simple, straight-forward products that save you time, and enable you to build deeper connections in your community. We look forward to seeing how we can help you thrive and flow.

Time, just like any valuable commodity, is always coveted.

The saying “time is money” carries literal weight in finance. It’s not just an asset; it’s a crucial factor in determining success.

In a quest to manage numerous responsibilities—like strategic planning, budgeting, financial reporting, and ensuring compliance—CFOs and finance teams often find time must be juggled to be both their greatest adversary and most invaluable ally.

Let’s explore how automation has the potential to revolutionize your time management for financial processes and positively influence your work-life balance.

Streamlining financial processes: How automation frees up time

The process of manually finalizing your financial records for a given period, or “closing the books”, is often overwhelming because of:

• Painstaking manual data entry and cross-referencing.
• Significant time and resources needed for tasks such as reconciling accounts and preparing financial statements.

• The scope for human error.
• The repetitive nature of the work.

It’s automation that removes the pain of manual closing.

Our Close the Books research says that most finance teams spend nearly 3 months a year on month-end close activities alone. With automation, you can cut that time by 29%—2 days per month or 24 days a year.

Here are 3 ways automation can work for you:

Invoice processing

Use a system that can automatically capture, validate, and process invoices, streamlining your workflow.

• With automation, the time spent on invoice processing can be reduced by up to 80%, freeing up 3 times more time for more impactful activities.

Financial reporting

Implement an automated reporting tool to generate accurate and visually appealing reports with just a few clicks.

• Focus on analyzing the data, identifying trends, and delivering valuable insights to support strategic decision-making.

Financial reconciliations

Use automation technology to simplify and accelerate the financial reconciliation process.

• No more manually matching and verifying transactions across multiple accounts or systems.

Pizza Pilgrims case study: Driving growth through automation

As businesses grow, they must evolve their processes to match. A compelling illustration of this is in the Pizza Pilgrims story, underlining the transformative potential of automation.

The growing pizza chain found its conventional calendar month financial reporting inadequate, prompting a shift to a 4-4-5 retail calendar. However, its old accounting system, Xero, wasn’t up to the task, leading to cumbersome month-end procedures.

Recognizing these inefficiencies, Sophie Gilchriest, finance director at Pizza Pilgrims, sought a cloud-based financial management system capable of automating and streamlining the process.

The goal was to find a solution that could adapt to their evolving needs and handle the increased volume of data from their expanding operation.

The search led them to Sage Intacct, software offering robust automation capabilities. Alongside their implementation partner PwC, Pizza Pilgrims successfully transitioned to the Sage Business Cloud.

This partnership minimized the transition period and ensured the efficient integration of the new system, positively and immediately affecting Pizza Pilgrim’s month-end procedures.

Pizza Pilgrim’s journey showcases the power of automation. By adopting Sage Intacct, the business streamlined its financial operations and simplified its procedures, efficiently scaling to match its growth.

Achieve a quicker close for high-value activities

You’ll achieve a quicker close by automating your processes. Here’s how you benefit:

Improve agility and flexibility

A quicker close provides more time for your team to respond to changing market conditions and shifting priorities.

• Your team can pivot and change course quickly, adapt to new scenarios, and stay ahead of the competition.
• Enhanced agility and flexibility align with today’s dynamic business environment, where businesses must act quickly and precisely to stay ahead.

Enhanced visibility and transparency

A faster close improves visibility into key performance metrics, giving your team the insights they need to make informed decisions.

• Stakeholders can access real-time data to help identify trends, uncover inefficiencies, and make better-informed strategic decisions.

Strategic planning and proactive decision-making

Automation allows for a shift from reactive to proactive decision-making. You can analyze business performance thoughtfully, identify risks and opportunities, and create visionary strategies to drive success.

• The finance department becomes a strategic partner to the rest of the organization.
• Cross-functional collaboration helps to align financial goals with broader business objectives.

Financial and data analysis

With automation handling repetitive tasks, your finance team can devote more time to financial analysis and gain a competitive edge.

• Delve deep into financial data, identifying trends, patterns, and insights that flag areas of opportunity and risk.
• Make informed decisions that promote growth and profitability.

Forecasting

Forecasting plays a critical role in strategic planning and resource allocation.

• Build robust, accurate forecasts that guide business decisions by leveraging historical data, industry trends, and market analysis.
• These forecasts help optimize budgeting, resource allocation, and goal setting, ensuring the company is on track to meet its objectives.

Balance work and well-being

The time dividend isn’t just a boon for your productivity—it could help you and your finance team lead more balanced and fulfilling lives.

Build your skills and cultivate a strong team

You can focus on mentoring, coaching, and developing your team members, fostering a positive work environment, and empowering them to take ownership of their roles.

By building a high-performing team, you lighten your workload and create a support system that shares your vision, increasing overall efficiency and fulfilment.

Grow personally:

• Expand your knowledge and skillset to bring fresh perspectives, new ideas, and innovative approaches to your business.
• Enhance your leadership capabilities, improve processes, and drive long-term success.

Lift your team by:

• Organizing team-building activities, fostering innovation, and improving communication and collaboration
• Developing new policies that enhance employee well-being.
• Cultivating a high-performance culture to drive engagement and retention, ultimately improving your bottom line.

Well-being and self-care

As a finance leader, you have a never-ending list of responsibilities and demands. It’s easy to get caught up in the daily grind, feeling overwhelmed and struggling to find balance.

Spend time to lead a more balanced and fulfilling life. You have the power to create a positive impact both in your professional and personal space.

It’s essential to prioritize self-care. Create blocks in your schedule to engage in activities that recharge your batteries and promote overall well-being.

• Whether exercising, practicing mindfulness, or pursuing hobbies, make time to take care of yourself.

• Reclaim precious time that you can dedicate to your loved ones.
• Leave the office on time and be fully present with your family and friends.

When you prioritize self-care, you are better equipped to handle challenges and have greater clarity of mind to make sound decisions.

Embrace the opportunities that automation presents and use the time it gives you to focus on what truly matters.

Final thoughts on using the power of automation

From enhancing productivity and efficiency to driving career growth, automation paves the way for unprecedented improvements. It’s not just about working smarter; it’s about harnessing the tools and technologies that allow us to do so.

Improved work-life balance is another compelling benefit, allowing you to achieve more without compromising personal time.

But understanding and embracing automation doesn’t happen overnight. It takes deliberate steps and an openness to learning and adapting to new working methods.

For SaaS CFOs, guiding the direction of their company is a lot like someone steering a massive ship. The ship itself is so much larger than the person controlling it that it seems almost shocking that they can exert so much influence over the vessel’s direction and trajectory.

In an accounting department, your “helm/steering wheel” or primary point of control is your SaaS metrics. A ship’s wheel allows a single person to guide it through stormy waters, and your metrics allow you to maneuver your company through the markets bringing everyone along with you.

This article will help you heighten control of crucial accounting issues:

• Strategize effectively around resources: Knowing exactly how much money you have at your disposal and how long you can expect it to last is essential. We’ll give you the tools to help that happen.
• Keep a lid on your churn rates: For recurring revenue companies, churn is always a non-starter. Do you know the different types to monitor and the various strategies you can use to decrease both of them?
• Centralize for massive results: In today’s world, manual data transfers are one of the biggest wastes of time for SaaS accounting staff and leadership. Reconciliations are the #1 thing that Finance teams dislike about their jobs.  If your team is still losing time tracking down data through endless mazes of emails, we can show you a better way.

What’s the first question you need to ask yourself to start taking more control of your company’s finances? Let’s find out.

What is your cash burn rate?

Cash burn rate (CBR) is one of the best metrics you can use to get a clear image of your company’s finances and cash flow. It tells you how long your money will last, given your financial obligations. In other words, it’s equivalent to your financial runway.

Knowing where your recurring revenue company stands with its CBR matters significantly. A pilot can’t get a plane off the ground if the runway is too short, and a SaaS CFO can’t take a company further than its financial runway will carry it.

This metric is an inseparable part of your cash flow situation. It helps you plan for future hiring decisions, marketing campaigns, product rollouts, and other financially essential activities.

Your CBR is divided into the following types. Each one is ideal in different contexts, depending on the data you’re looking for:

• Gross burn: Your gross burn tells you how much money you spend per month. It doesn’t factor in your revenue or anything else: it’s purely a measurement of your SaaS company’s financial liabilities.
• Net burn: Your net burn is similar to your gross burn but includes your monthly revenue. It offers a more complete picture of your company’s financial position. To find your net burn, subtract your monthly revenue from your gross burn.
• Runway: To calculate your financial runway, take your total cash holdings and divide that figure by your net burn rate. The result will be a financial runway measured in months.

Maintaining a sense of realism about cash flow is invaluable for recurring revenue firms, especially when times get tough. It will help you keep a clear head about what matters and what doesn’t when you’re forming plans for the coming financial quarters.

Can you add as many new sales staff as you were planning? Is your marketing budget for the next quarter going to be lower than anticipated, and if so, by how much exactly?

With automated SaaS accounting software, you’ll be able to find your CBR easily and combine it with robust forecasting to answer complex questions like these. Just plug in your starting data, and you’ll be able to generate forecasts for layered, multi-factor scenarios.

Getting a handle on churn rates

In his landmark business classic, The Effective Executive, Peter Drucker says that the point of a company is to create and keep a customer. Understanding and proactively managing churn deals with the second half of that process.

A certain amount of churn is unavoidable for SaaS companies. But as soon as you notice it happening at a rate that concerns you, do your best to answer two critical questions.

First, why are customers churning (or churning in higher-than-average numbers)? Second, what measures can you take to plug those leaks as quickly and fully as possible?

The reason behind churn varies depending on which of the two types of churn you’re looking at. Voluntary churn occurs when users have actively chosen to unsubscribe from your services for one reason or another. On the other hand, involuntary churn happens when users cannot complete their subscription transaction and are automatically churned for that reason.

Involuntary churn is an easy fix. If it comes down to an issue with your payment processor, it’s simply a matter of getting everything patched up on your end. If the problem is on the customer’s side, they’ll need to update their card info.

When the issue is voluntary churn, your customers might be leaving for any number of reasons. You may be pricing yourself out of the market relative to your value offering. You may be missing service options or product features that your customers would like access to. Automated accounting software can offer detailed tracking of your churn figures.

Once you’ve determined that voluntary churn is the reason for dwindling subscription numbers, it can be very useful to look through customer reviews and forum content for your industry. In those spaces and other types of user-generated content like social channels, customers will often directly say why they churned from your service or similar ones. All you have to do is listen and take notes.

Now that you know how to manage churn, let’s move on to the third vital way that SaaS CFOs can increase their level of control over their department’s direction.

Save time with role-based financial dashboards

One of the biggest wastes of time for SaaS accounting companies is manual data transfers between departments and team members. And beyond just being an unprofitable use of time, it opens you and your colleagues up to many different (and potentially expensive) mistakes and inaccuracies.

Cloud-based accounting software uses consolidated financial dashboards to give finance leaders immediate access to all the data they need. In a single glance, your team leaders will be able to see everything they need to keep track of:

• CFO Dashboard: Instantly view your assets, expenses, net income, detailed and categorized cash flow data, and much more in one convenient screen. As a CFO, don’t you have too much on your plate to be hunting down your data manually?

• Controller Dashboard: Controllers have a considerable amount of data they’re responsible for keeping track of. They need seamless access to salary and wage info, cash flow metrics, budgeting data, and much more.

With role-based financial dashboards in your team’s accounting toolbox, you’ll never have to send another email for data-gathering purposes again.

Take control of your SaaS accounting

Automation can revolutionize your relationship with your SaaS metrics, your department, and your standards and practices around data consolidation.

To learn even more, check out our recent webinar about cutting down on churn by leveraging revenue operations.

It was 1984 when I first started thinking about Artificial Intelligence (AI). Granted, it was in a movie theater where I was being introduced to Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, and the last thing I was thinking about was how technology could have a meaningful impact on how entrepreneurs run their businesses.

The ways businesses can use the power of AI have opened the door for banks to provide even greater value for their clients–and generally lessened my fears of Skynet.

Automating Businesses

Today, AI serves as a chief technology in supporting business automation and can reduce manual processes and create more efficiency in the business environment. Today, 62 percent of businesses believe that automation can resolve three or more process inefficiencies they face. Leveraging AI to drive that automation is an opportunity to decrease those manual tasks, reduce errors, improve speed, and transform business operations as a whole.

AI plays an integral role in that transformation. Some of the most advanced platforms supporting back office automation are using machine learning to systematize the invoicing and payment processes for businesses by:

• recognizing and intercepting human error;
• initiating approval processes;
• recognizing workflows;
• and automatically creating business rules on behalf of customers.

These new workflows and processes mean time and cost savings for businesses: those using platforms that leverage AI have reported that they save on average 5.5 hours per week, which translates to more than 36 business days annually.

Leveraging AI to Support Business Customers

So, where does that leave financial institutions? How can banks help their business customers save time and resources with AI? There are three strong possibilities for banks in the near term:

1. Providing data-rich insights for products and services that help businesses detect customer patterns and habits and uncover unmet needs where product enhancements or new products may be warranted.
2. Offering streamlined back office through automated invoicing and payment collection/reconciliation, as well as options to auto-pay recurring bills.
3. Enabling enhanced fraud monitoring by providing data and machine learning and anomaly detection to help ensure approval of every good transaction.

The AI Opportunity

While the benefits are numerous, AI adoption, particularly by small and medium businesses, has much room to grow. Today, only 8 percent of SMBs are using AI.  But nearly half of SMB leaders (46 percent) believe their businesses are ready to use AI, and 32 percent have plans to implement AI. That’s why this was a key topic that René Lacerte, Bill.com’s CEO and Founder, addressed in this session at Money20/20.

As I have aged (let’s go with ‘matured’), my perspective has changed a bit, and I have been able to balance the specter of The Terminator with the promise that AI brings.  I feel very lucky to be part of this positive impact, as well as helping many of our partners by offering the same to their customers.

PS – One of my favorite parts of The Terminator was the small role by a young Bill Paxton.  If you don’t remember, check it out.

—

This content was originally published here.

Bill.com is a leading provider of cloud-based software that simplifies, digitizes, and automates complex, back-office financial operations for small and midsize businesses. Customers use the Bill.com platform to manage end-to-end financial workflows and to process payments. The Bill.com AI-enabled financial software platform connects businesses and their suppliers and clients. It helps manage cash inflows and outflows. The company partners with several of the largest U.S. financial institutions, including most of the top 100 U.S. accounting firms and popular accounting software providers. Bill.com has offices in Palo Alto, California, and Houston, Texas. For more information, visit www.bill.com.