Brooke Hattie · Aug 7, 2024 · Case Studies
About this engagement
Our client is a small startup in the artificial intelligence space. They were getting ready for their Series A funding round, and before those conversations started they needed their revenue metrics in order.
They brought us in to consolidate their revenue data into one source of truth and validate the numbers they would put in front of investors.
The Challenge
Like many startups, their CRM wasn't set up to be the single source of truth for revenue. The information was spread across spreadsheets, contract PDFs with inconsistent terms and several accounting systems.
That made it hard to calculate monthly and annual recurring revenue accurately, track customer retention or present reliable data to potential investors.
The Solution
We analyzed and consolidated the client's fragmented data: normalizing the revenue data, handling the different payment schedules, extracting terms from the PDF contracts, reconciling the discrepancies and setting up a tracking system to keep it all in one place.
At a high level, here is what changed:
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue spread across spreadsheets, PDFs and several accounting systems | → | One consolidated record of revenue |
| Contracts with inconsistent terms | → | Payments matched to contract terms, with discrepancies resolved |
| MRR and ARR hard to calculate | → | Recurring and non-recurring payments separated, and MRR calculated consistently |
| No view of retention | → | Dashboards on revenue, churn and net and gross retention |
And now, here is how we got there.
An audit and the data extraction
We exported the data from Stripe and QuickBooks and reviewed the individual contracts to understand each payment schedule and set of terms.
Normalizing the revenue
A detailed sheet separates and categorizes recurring and non-recurring payments. Every contract was then transformed so MRR is calculated the same way across all of them.
Reconciling the contracts
We matched payments to contract terms, identified the discrepancies and worked with the client to resolve them.
Dashboards
Dashboards track monthly and quarterly revenue, customer churn, and net and gross retention.
The Results
With the data consolidated and the revenue calculations automated, tracking revenue takes far less time, and the client's monthly and annual recurring revenue figures are accurate.
They can now see customer retention, revenue trends and financial performance clearly, and they went into their Series A fundraising with confidence in their metrics and accurate revenue data to present.
Request a free consultation to see how we can help you prepare for your next round of funding.