SaaSOptics News RSShttp://www.saasoptics.com/index.htmlSaaSOptics Newsennews@saasoptics.comCopyright 2010 SaaSOptics, LLC2013-02-08T14:25:59-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Mon, 2 Aug 2010 18:17:23 -0400SaaSOptics Announces Support for QuickBooks Jobsnews@saasoptics.comHome2013-02-08T14:25:59-05:00http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/e6de0347d6aa1b2f59de6c479c925d01-12.html#unique-entry-id-12http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/e6de0347d6aa1b2f59de6c479c925d01-12.html#unique-entry-id-12RevenueBooks Enhancements Include Support for QuickBooks Jobs

SaaSOptics is pleased to announce enhancements to its Revenue Books connector for integration to QuickBooks for complete subscription management.

"QuickBooks is missing critical functions and capabilities for managing a subscription business," stated David Ryan, SaaSOptics CEO. "With SaaSOptics, the RevenueBooks connector, and QuickBooks, we create an integrated virtual system that handles revenue recognition, subscription billing, subscription renewals, and contract management for a fraction of the cost of a higher end financial management system. A contract object is essential for GAAP revenue recognition calculation. QuickBooks doesn't have a job object, which is why QuickBooks users usually turn to spreadsheets for revenue reporting."

Continued David Ryan, "While QuickBooks doesn't have a contract object, it does have the ability to track customer jobs. Many of our customers have used the QuickBooks job like a contract, so we architected a solution that enables jobs and contracts to map to each other. When synced, the SaaSOptics created contract will create a customer job in QuickBooks and the QuickBooks customer job will create a contract in SaaSOptics."

"And, it works the other way as well. If you create a Job in QuickBooks, the Job will create a specific Contract under the Customer in SaaSOptics. If you have multiple Jobs for a Customer in QuickBooks, you will have a matching Contract in SaaSOptics. Invoices for the Job will be associated with the matching Contract and revenues will be created for the Contract. This provides a GAAP compliant revenue entry and enables proper calculation of deferred revenues and unbilled accounts receivable."]]>SaaSOptics Announces Certification for QuickBooks 2013news@saasoptics.comHome2012-11-30T13:26:52-05:00http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/ae2179131a1880448ea5d44af7d88ba1-11.html#unique-entry-id-11http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/ae2179131a1880448ea5d44af7d88ba1-11.html#unique-entry-id-11RevenueBooks Connector for subscription management, revenue management and invoicing now certified for QuickBooks 2013

SaaSOptics, a provider of specialized financial management tools and analytics for subscription businesses, today announces certification of its integration module, RevenueBooks, for QuickBooks 2013.

"Our early customer adoption program for RevenueBooks for the QuickBooks 2013 suite of products is now complete, and we are happy to announce formal support for use of RevenueBooks to integrate SaaSOptics with QuickBooks 2013 Pro, Premiere and Enterprise, for the US, Canadian, and UK versions of QuickBooks," stated David Ryan, CEO, SaaSOptics.

Added Clayton Whitfield, Chief Technology Officer, "While there were many changes to the QuickBooks user experience in 2013 versions, there were no changes to the functionality that QuickBooks provides for revenue recognition and revenue management needed by recurring revenue businesses. The only real revenue management and subscription invoicing solution for early stage SaaS and other recurring revenue businesses remains SaaSOptics and QuickBooks working through RevenueBooks as a unified integrated solution. Along with this certification, we have also enhanced the subscription invoicing engine in SaaSOptics. Our subscription billing engine is now more configurable, with many more invoicing options and features."

Continued David Ryan, "Using SaaSOptics to generate recurring subscription invoices saves our customers enormous time because it is dramatically more efficient then common methods employed, such as QuickBooks memorized transactions. With our invoicing engine, you can actually build out monthly, quarterly, annual and other complex billing schedules for each customer. SaaSOptics actually generates the invoice data at the time you develop the schedules, but only synchronizes invoices to QuickBooks when the invoice dates arrive. While QuickBooks always reflects accurate AR, SaaSOptics contains a complete list of future invoices, and therefor can be used for incredibly accurate cash flow forecasts. And of course, SaaSOptics generates accurate revenue and deferred revenue records for GAAP compliant financials."
]]>SaaSOptics V6.11 Release Summarynews@saasoptics.comHome2012-10-03T15:45:11-04:00http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/1b9b89aa158ecebfd9f8bc393072bcbe-10.html#unique-entry-id-10http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/1b9b89aa158ecebfd9f8bc393072bcbe-10.html#unique-entry-id-10SaaSOptics V6.11 Highlights

Version 6.11, released in a series of point releases from June through September, includes hundreds of enhancements and improvements. Highlights include:

General Enhancements



Overall Click Stream Improvement
All the core content creation screens have been redesigned to improve.

Revenue Integrity Checks
A number of checks have been added on the dashboard, customer, contracts and transaction screens to verify revenue and subscription integrity.

Complex Transactions
New, optimized functions were added to make it easy to create complex transaction like Upgrade Extensions, Early Terminations, and currency conversions.

Report Enhancements 
The reports authoring interface has been simplified and streamlined.

Batch Invoice Editing
A new batch invoking editing has been added that enables easy creation or editing of custom invoice schedules.

Help & Training
Training and help content has been increased by 50% with significant additions of short training videos.

Revenuebooks Enhancements (for QuickBooks Integration


Generate Transactions from Orphaned Invoices 
New function that enables you to generate Transactions and Revenues in mass from invoices that have been created in and synced from QuickBooks.

Deleted Invoices 
New Revenue Integrity report on your QuickBooks dashboard that lists any invoices you have deleted in QuickBooks and the impact on your revenues.

Revenue Integrity Reports
A number of unique QuickBooks-related revenue integrity reports and checks have been added to the system.]]>SaaSOptics V6 Release Summarynews@saasoptics.comHome2012-06-19T12:01:56-04:00http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/39e2e5ee15a5d5b75117e1ba26a1bc5d-9.html#unique-entry-id-9http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/39e2e5ee15a5d5b75117e1ba26a1bc5d-9.html#unique-entry-id-9SaaSOptics Version 6 Release Summary
Version 6, released in a series of point releases from April to June includes significant new functions and enhancements. Several of the meaningful new capabilities are as follows:

Count Report
A new Analytics report that generates a count of Customers or Contracts using either revenues or invoices. This new report complements the existing and robust cancellation reporting capabilities.

Orders
A new function supported by a new user role that enables selected users to submit Orders that can be converted by an Administrator into Customer, Contract, and Transaction information. Orders can be key entered by a sales person of staff member and or populated from closed Opportunities via the Salesforce.com integration.

Locking
SaaSOptics now has a Closing Date option that prevents the addition, deletion or modification of transactions, revenues, and invoices on or before the Closing Period Date. This Date works independently from The QuickBooks Closing date, which is also supported and enforced when using RevenueBooks

Finance Summary Report
The report format has been enhanced to include a section that displays the appropriate Debit and Credit entries to be made for revenue recognition in your finance system. If using RevenueBooks, you can have the journal adjustments sent to QuickBooks via the sync process.

Create Transactions from Orphaned Invoices
This new function makes it easy to create a Transaction for one or more "orphaned invoices," that is Invoices that are not associated with Transactions. This is a new feature that provides an additional option for creating revenues for historical data when only invoice information exists, which is common when using QuickBooks or other packaged finance systems. Useful for creating Transactions for Invoices created in QuickBooks and synced to SaaSOptics.

Cancel Transaction
A new click stream optimized function used to Cancel a Transaction.

Extend Transaction
A new click stream optimized function used to Extend a Transaction.

Foreign Currency Adjustment Transaction
A new click stream optimized function used to a Transaction for revenue recognition when using foreign currencies options in QuickBooks.

Upgrade
A new click stream optimized function used to create an upgrade to an existing Transaction.

Upgrade Extension
A new click stream optimized function used to create an upgrade and an extension to an existing Transaction.

Termination
A new click stream optimized function used to create a Transaction with appropriate offsetting revenues and credits to reverse an existing transaction.

Term Amount Calculator
A new utility function that makes it easy to determine transaction values for terms that span irregular periods, such as 3 months and 14 days.]]>SaaSOptics is pleased to announce the release of V5.5news@saasoptics.comHome2012-01-19T11:59:10-05:00http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/3a24373c66ac512e59b6cf124ada7b9b-8.html#unique-entry-id-8http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/3a24373c66ac512e59b6cf124ada7b9b-8.html#unique-entry-id-8SaaSOptics is pleased to announce the release of V5.5.
Enhancements include:
Transactions
  • New Add/Update Transaction screens
    • New "section" divisions reorganize the fields into related groups
    • Auto generation of End Date based on the default duration of the associated Item
      • Manual Date overrides and Select Duration option to calculate End Date
    • Ability to enter a normalized amount or to select an alternative normalization calculation
    • New Quantity field
    • New Revenue Generation capabilities to select alternative revenue recognition method and alternative revenue rec start and end dates right on the screen
      • Dates are pre populated based on Transaction Start and End Dates
      • Defaulted to Generate Revenue ON when creating a Transaction
      • Defaulted to Generate Revenue OFF when updating a Transaction
    • New "Unbalanced revenue exception" setting that excepts out and unbalanced revenue to amount situation so it will not be included in the Unbalanced Revenue calculation and thus be excluded from the Transactions needing attention function on the Home page
    • New Invoice Generation capabilities to select alternative invoice generation method and date
      • The ability to enter a PO Number and have it entered on all created Invoices
      • New "Quantities" field for Invoices, pre-populated from the Transaction Quantity field
      • Dates are pre-populated based on Transaction Start and End Dates
      • Defaulted to Generate Revenue ON when creating a Transaction
      • Defaulted to Generate Revenue OFF when updating a Transaction
    • We have also changed the screen so when you click on the Invoices or Transactions button you do not scroll back to the top of the screen
  • Renew Transaction
    • Similar changes were made to the Renew Transaction screen
  • Process Renewals and Bulk Renewals
    • Check boxes were added to both functions enable the selection of Generate Revenues and Generate Invoices
Customers
  • New Parent Customer field, searchable in the Customer List and included in Report filters and Metric drill down
  • New Company Code included in Report filters and Metric drill down
  • Sorting of the Customer List function
Invoices
  • Invoice list on Transaction screen and List Export Invoices in Admin now shows only the root Item name
  • List Export Invoices now includes additional fields
Items
  • An Item Code was added and is available in report filters and metrics drill downs
]]>SaaSOptics today announces RevenueBooks, a new cloud based revenue and contract management solution for users of QuickBooks. news@saasoptics.comHome2012-02-05T11:26:52-05:00http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/dd18b4de43469dd5d6d6f43590e4e8cf-7.html#unique-entry-id-7http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/dd18b4de43469dd5d6d6f43590e4e8cf-7.html#unique-entry-id-7
"We've been helping SaaS and other subscription customers with financial analysis, subscription analysis, and revenue reporting for a little over a year now, " added Clayton Whitfield, CTO SaaSOptics. "Many existing and prospective SaaSOptics customers use QuickBooks and asked if we could integrate the systems. Instead of a simple integration, we developed RevenueBooks, a cloud platform that combines QuickBooks and SaaSOptics in such a way as to create a 'virtual' enterprise-class revenue management system. The solution provides an audit-able revenue and subscription management solution at a fraction of the cost and effort of any mid-market finance system capable of supporting revenue recognition. With RevenueBooks, QuickBooks remains your financial system of record, financial reporting tool, banking, GL, AR, and AP system. SaaSOptics provides all the missing and audit-able details involving revenues, and it continues to provide comprehensive subscription management and analytics. It's a perfect combination."

RevenueBooks syncs your QuickBooks desktop data to a cloud-based SaaSOptics account. Once in SaaSOptics, the QuickBooks data is augmented with information required for revenue and renewal management. For instance, revenue recognition templates and billing schedules are applied to QuickBooks Items. These augmented Items play a key role in the creation and management of the missing information needed for complete revenue management: contract element transactions, expiration dates, billing schedules, and revenue schedules.

With contract element transactions, revenue schedules, and invoices, SaaSOptics has all the components needed to generate the revenue recognition journal entries for QuickBooks. RevenueBooks then handles syncing to QuickBooks the revenue journal entries for your income statement and deferred revenue and unbilled AR journal entries for your balance sheet, at your choice of detailed or summary level.

About SaaSOptics


SaaSOptics provides financial management and analytics tools for SaaS, software, and other recurring revenue businesses. SaaSOptics ensures your team has access to the correct targets, results, and projections, including churn, mrr, renewal rates, bookings, revenues, and countless other metrics needed to manage a subscription business. SaaSOptics is delivered as a SaaS solution. SaaSOptics is a private, Atlanta-based company. ]]>SaaSOptics Announces Enhanced Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) Reportingnews@saasoptics.comHome2011-08-24T08:44:22-04:00http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/80108c657bcc4a3db3aa992135fa6b6e-6.html#unique-entry-id-6http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/80108c657bcc4a3db3aa992135fa6b6e-6.html#unique-entry-id-6New reporting capabilities help SaaS, software, and other subscription businesses quickly measure MRR momentum.

SaaSOptics, the provider of specialized financial management and analytics tools for subscription businesses, today announces the availability of new Bessemer MRR reporting capabilities.

"There are a handful of key subscription metrics that are growing in popularity with subscription and SaaS businesses," said David Ryan, CEO, SaaSOptics. "In particular, companies are looking for normalized growth measurements as key metrics to report on to ensure board members and senior staff understand real revenue momentum objectives and performance."

Added Clayton Whitfield, Chief Technology Officer, "The metrics 'churn' and 'renewal rate' have been popular for some time, but these measurements have been historically associated with bookings numbers and not revenue. While it is essential to understand these metrics for optimal pricing, packaging, compensation planning, training and other operational decision making, these metrics speak neither to growth nor to financial-oriented thinkers and constituents because they are typically represented as ratios, such as a 92% renewal rate."

Continued David Ryan, "A new hybrid metric has evolved called monthly recurring revenue growth, frequently referred to as MRR growth. MRR growth paints a picture of the forward revenue momentum of a subscription company. MRR growth measurements have been popularized through a series of white papers and presentations by Bessemer Venture Partners, an active SaaS investor. Many venture funds have adopted the MRR growth report as a key metric for the evaluation of potential investments. Naturally, they have become popular with SaaS and subscription software companies that are in the market for funding. Many CEOs and CFOs have adopted MRR growth as their single most important business metric."

"While MRR contains the word 'revenue,' Monthly Recurring Revenue is not a traditional financial management reporting number and cannot be generated directly from a finance or accounting system. MRR is a normalized representation of the recurring revenue associated with a term agreement. A simple illustration shines a spotlight on one of the complexities. A 12-month contract worth $12,000 has an MRR value of $1000 for each month in which the contract is active. One that starts on January 1 and ends on December 31 has a MRR of $1000 for each of the 12 months of the year. One that starts on January 15 and ends a year later on January 14 has an MRR of $1000 for each of 13 months, at least in most of the MRR calculations we've seen."

Added Clayton Whitfield, "The MRR report is complicated to generate in a spreadsheet and the complexity grows exponentially with each new contract and sales transaction. We continue to hear stories of companies investing days each quarter to generate MRR reports. Even worse is that once they standardize on MRR as a key business metric, they really need timely information at their fingertips, but can't afford the time to generate them monthly, let alone weekly or daily."

"To accurately calculate MRR growth, you need a normalized MRR value, as opposed to a revenue recognition schedule. You also need to link transactions in order to measure changes in contract value at renewal time. And, you need to have recorded cancellations so you can measure the lost revenue or revenue churn. SaaSOptics has had these capabilities since its first release. To generate the increasingly popular MRR report, we simply needed to add a new report format output. Now with SaaSOptics, you can have your MRR reports on demand along with numerous churn, renewal, cash flow projection, bookings, revenue, revenue projection, and other reports."

About SaaSOptics


SaaSOptics provides financial management and business intelligence tools for SaaS, software, and other recurring revenue businesses. SaaSOptics ensures your team has access to the correct targets, results, and projections, including churn, mrr, renewal rates, bookings, revenues, and countless other metrics needed to manage a subscription business. SaaSOptics is delivered as a SaaS solution. SaaSOptics is a private, Atlanta-based company.
]]>SaaSOptics Announces Enhanced Ability to Project Cash Flownews@saasoptics.comHome2011-07-12T19:47:00-04:00http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/da8c405d3bec4d239d0438d6a22af929-5.html#unique-entry-id-5http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/da8c405d3bec4d239d0438d6a22af929-5.html#unique-entry-id-5SaaSOptics announces new Contract Revenue Management Capabilitiesnews@saasoptics.comHome2011-01-11T18:15:00-05:00http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/afbfcbe18e93f562a2f8b5232b9a3215-4.html#unique-entry-id-4http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/afbfcbe18e93f562a2f8b5232b9a3215-4.html#unique-entry-id-4New contract and revenue management tools address revenue recognition and contract renewal needs of SaaS, software, and other businesses with term subscriptions.

SaaSOptics, the provider of specialized financial tools and analytics for subscription businesses, today announces the availability of new contract and revenue management functions in SaaSOptics.

"SaaSOptics Version 3.2 includes a number of functions designed specifically to manage the revenue recognition process for businesses with term subscriptions," said David Ryan, CEO of SaaSOptics. "When we brought SaaSOptics to market, a number of CFOs responded positively to the revenue forecasting functionality we built specifically to help recurring revenue companies measure monthly recurring revenue (mrr) and to project future revenue performance. Several asked if we would consider enhancing the revenue management functions so they could eliminate costly and error-prone spreadsheets used as contract and revenue ledgers. V3.2 embodies a significant number of enhancements that now enable customers to rely on SaaSOptics as a system of record for contracts and revenues."

"As our business has expanded, it has become increasingly more work to manage the revenue recognition for our varied and sometimes complex contracts," stated Jim Crisera, CFO of The TAS Group, a Seattle-based provider of sale performance automation software. "We've been watching the development of SaaSOptics and are implementing it now. SaaSOptics will not only save our finance team significant time every month, but will also provide the management team with new insight into revenue recognition based performance metrics to complement the sales performance metrics we get from Dealmaker."

Added Clayton Whitfield, Chief Technology Officer of SaaSOptics, "We have added a rich set of revenue recognition templates, management functions, and new reporting tools that make it easy to generate revenue information for financial reporting. We make it quick and easy for CFOs to get both the revenue numbers for the income statement and also the balance sheet journal adjustments needed for deferred revenue and unbilled AR entries that are typically needed by SaaS, software, and other companies with term agreements requiring revenue recognition."

SaaSOptics Version 3.2 includes a rich set of contract and revenue management tools, including over 25 revenue recognition templates, acceptance management, contract revenue schedule reports for supporting documentation, journal entry reports, and renewal management. With the new revenue management capabilities, SaaSOptics can be both a decision support tool and a contract and revenue management system, filling financial reporting and analysis gaps in off-the-shelf accounting software packages.

About SaaSOptics

SaaSOptics provides tools for the management and analysis of subscription revenues for SaaS, software, and other recurring revenue businesses. SaaSOptics ensures your team has access to the correct targets, results, and projections, including churn, mrr, renewal rates, bookings, revenues, and countless other metrics needed to manage a subscription business. SaaSOptics is delivered as a SaaS solution. SaaSOptics, LLC is a private, Atlanta-based company.]]>SaaS Optics Version 3.2 is now availablenews@saasoptics.comHome2010-12-30T13:55:20-05:00http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/6102310b4ffaa160f6a7667af889a385-3.html#unique-entry-id-3http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/6102310b4ffaa160f6a7667af889a385-3.html#unique-entry-id-3SaaSOptics is pleased to announce the release of V3.1
Significant enhancements for revenue management for subscription and other revenues were released December 29, 2010.
  • New - Key or Import Invoices for contracts for use in balance sheet calculations
  • New - Automatic Deferred Revenue and Unbilled AR calculations in the Customer Revenue Summary and Contract screens
  • New - Financial Summary Report provides entires for period Revenue, Deferred Revenue, and Unbilled AR
  • New - Financial Detail Report provides customer contract level records for total revenue, recognizable revenue, unrecognizable revenue, deferred Revenue, and unbilled AR
  • Enhancement - additional filtering to support “or” and “and” conditions has been added
]]>SaaS Optics Version 2 now available! news@saasoptics.comHome2010-08-02T18:18:22-04:00http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/0f6ef861ef0ffeb860fe4c17b84c4448-1.html#unique-entry-id-1http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/0f6ef861ef0ffeb860fe4c17b84c4448-1.html#unique-entry-id-1SaaS Optics Version 3 now availablenews@saasoptics.comHome2010-11-17T18:18:00-05:00http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/1f457298503bdac611ee8ba666905549-0.html#unique-entry-id-0http://www.saasoptics.com/about_saas_optics/saas_optics_news/files/1f457298503bdac611ee8ba666905549-0.html#unique-entry-id-0SaaSOptics is pleased to announce the release of V3.2.1. Enhancements include:
  • Significant enhancements for revenue management to enable SaaSOptics to behave as the system of record for subscription and other revenues
    • New - 24 revenue recognition templates can be selected for Items
    • New - Transaction "Update Revenue" mode setting (Manual or Automatic) is available. Manual effectively locks the revenue schedule and prevents changes other than through manual entry.
    • New - Transaction "Recognize" mode setting used for contracts with acceptance criteria and in the calculation of deferred revenue and unbilled AR
    • Enhancement - The Report "Export" function now exports underlying revenue transactions to support revenue recognition documentation
  • New - "Revenue" view in the Customer record that summarizes the Total, Recognizable, and Unrecognizable Revenues for the Customer
  • New - "Future Values" option added to Reports enables you to calculate all future values (past the Report End Date/End Term) for each metric calculation (report line item)
  • New - "Normalize Amount" option set for each Item normalizes Transactions for comparison of disparate term lengths. Normalization options include Monthly and Annual. The Report function has been enhanced to enable the selection of either the Transaction Amount or the Normalized Amount.
  • New Transaction Fields
    • Conversion - used to identify upgrades, downgrades, upsells and other changes to a Transaction
    • Flagged - for use in the upcoming "Transaction Needing Attention" function
    • Notes - a free form field to keep notes about a Transaction
As always, please forward feedback and requests. SaaSOptics develops with a rapid delivery model and can build and deploy new versions in periods as short as a week. Naturally, any product defects are addressed and in a time frame commensurate with their severity and overall customer impact.
In development now for V3.2.2 with target release date of Dec 18, 2010:
  • New Invoice class Transaction used in the calculation of deferred revenue and unbilled AR
  • New "revenue" views of customers and contracts, including total, recognized, and unrecognized revenues
  • New Deferred Revenue and Unbilled AR reports
  • New "Transactions needing attention" function
    • Designed to help you identify and follow up on transactions requiring attention
    • Lists Transactions with any "Flagged" value, with "Recognize" value set to No or out of balance (Invoice total - Revenue total)

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