Throughout this series we have covered critical factors that enable the Office of the CFO including Sales & Financial Master, Data Readiness, Salesforce + ERP, SSP & the Sales Catalog and Merger Acquisition & Onboarding Readiness.
A majority of our discussion has been around the inputs and share of information involving Salesforce. All of this leads up to the main attraction – how the data from Salesforce is utilized to strengthen the position of the CFO.
The reporting of data coming out of Salesforce is one of the largest returns on one’s investment for the platform. The reporting can come in many fashions:
This reporting is the basis of actionable decisions made by the Office of the CFO.
Reporting supports many functions, but for the Finance Office, Revenue Forecasting is a key need. Being able to report on existing revenue as well as backlog and anticipated pipeline revenue in a repeatable, dependable fashion is crucial. Leveraging tools such as Salesforce Sales Cloud, Salesforce CPQ & Salesforce Billing, provide the basis for this reporting function.
Organizations make strategic decisions based on accurate/predictable revenue forecasts and annual budgets. They can also track and manage business performance utilizing this information. Salesforce has added wonderful functionality in their Revenue Intelligence offering that provides enhanced Forecasting capabilities as a part of the tool (in addition to team performance specified KPI’s).
The transparency that an integrated platform solution provides to cross functional teams enables consistent customer information sharing across your Sales, Account Executives, Customer Success and Renewal Teams. This will add to the success of your Revenue Forecasting.
Two key metrics that come out of the referenced reporting and revenue forecasting is revenue leakage (revenue earned by an organization, but not collected) and churn (measure of lost revenue).
Whether revenue leakage is a result of misaligned product and pricing rules between systems, invoicing systems that are not integrated (or integrated properly) or manual processes – revenue leakage can be mitigated with the proper measures in place.
Ensuring there is a clear measurement of your existing revenue in Salesforce is where we begin for both of these. That is the basis for problem identification. A clear delineation of one-time, recurring revenue products & time and material products through correct Product Catalog setup in Sales & Finance Masters is our jumping off point. This establishes the groundwork for solid reporting.
Shifts in revenue will become evident in a visible fashion. Since reporting is a lagging indicator, the Salesforce platform supports the functions that can prevent leakage & churn. Often, so much focus is placed on securing a new client’s business and unfortunately, at the time of renewal, unmanaged processes can result in unexpected churn.
Salesforce can manage the revenue nurturing activities in a meaningful manner – this can be through guidance in the system, automated processes and Operations Team dashboards of ongoing activities. With a clearly defined reporting and forecasting strategy, unexplained leakage and churn should be greatly reduced.
At Uptima, one of our most frequent requests from clients is to improve revenue reporting. We’d love to work with you on improving yours. Our Director of Revenue Cloud Architecture, Tom McGean, has created a unique additional offering that has brought immediate value to many clients.
Uptima’s SaaS Dashboard Offering
The SaaS dashboard displays key performance indicators related to recurring subscription sales such as churn rate, upsell rate, and cancellations and group them in a real time, accurate dashboard for your convenience.
At Uptima, we live to implement and expand your end-to-end revenue needs. That’s what Everything To Revenue™ means. By optimizing revenue, we empower you to make your business easier to manage.
Stay tuned for Part 6 of this series, detailing Mergers & Acquisitions, coming shortly!
For more details about our 7-part series, visit our original post here: https://uptima.com/our-new-series-the-office-of-the-cfo-enabled-through-salesforce/
Written by Marei Draper, Principal Consultant at Uptima