Keeping in mind that with each stage, you’re adding to both the number of metrics you’re tracking, but also potentially the depth and quality of each of those metrics (think segment reporting), all of this adds up to an increasing complexity and effort in tracking these. You and your Board are going to want you to be spending your time analysing the results, not just spending all your time in a spreadsheet calculating those metrics.
So, in this final article in our series, we’ll share some thoughts on the tools that are out there that we work with on the journey with our clients. Let’s go!
Invoicing your first clients
When you’re first starting out there comes that heady day when you’ve won your first customer and you need to send them an invoice (so they can pay you that cash, right?).
Enter ye-olde accounting system, typically Xero, Quickbooks or Sage in the early-er days of your startup journey. Send an invoice, collect the cash, done. Then you realise that it’s a recurring monthly subscription and you need to send another (essentially the same) invoice next month. The good news is most accounting systems can be set up to send repeating invoices on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis.
Spreadsheets…and a bit more accounting
For your first 20-30 customers you should be happily invoicing, and starting to track the top level metrics of no. of customers, revenue, maybe even ARR. Your source data is your (accounting) billing system and so initially you’re fine exporting information into a spreadsheet (or we typically build automated Xero->Google Sheet systems so the reporting is always live).
Remember that revenue comment? Turns out when you sell an annual subscription, while it’s cash, that’s not all (accounting) revenue. Non-technically you need to spread out the invoice across the life of the subscription (e.g. recognising 12 lots of revenue each month).
Want more on this: we’ve put together this layman’s guide article on revenue recognition.
It’s not just the accounting standards that are making you do this…increasingly as you grow, you’ll be managing your business month to month, and so you’ll start to want a smoother way of looking at what’s going on, on a monthly basis (yep, that means smoothing out those annual subscription expenses you pay too). It makes sense from a business perspective, which is why the accounting standards have evolved. Your investors will want this as you’re heading into Series A.
And remember that mix of monthly, quarterly and annual invoicing and subscriptions, let alone when your sales team gives away 2 free months…the need to handle this increasing complexity, as well as an increasing number of customers, is what leads to the next evolution.
Subscription management including reporting
Handling recurring billing, upgrades, downgrades, trials, and proration manually doesn’t scale, so these platforms automate the subscription lifecycle and reduce revenue leakage. Here are some of the systems we come across regularly:
- Stripe Billing: Great for startups and mid-sized companies, and integrates well with existing systems
- Chargebee: Offers flexibility for complex billing models and handles compliance
- Maxio (formerly SaaSOptics + Chargify): Combines billing, rev rec, and metrics tracking in one suite
They all typically feed invoices into your accounting system (so that you can track what you’re owed in accounts receivable). They also start to take over the heavy lifting by doing the accounting calculations your FinOps team needs at the end of month, so you’ve got that smoother revenue reporting we talked about. They will also do the cohort level analysis you’ll need for MRR, expansion, churn etc.
Reporting only: KPIs and dashboards
It’s like reporting, without the billing and accounting elements. Look at tools like:
- ChartMogul: focused on SaaS metrics like MRR, churn, LTV, and ARR with deep cohort analysis
- Baremetrics: easy-to-use dashboard for SaaS businesses using Stripe, with features like forecast modeling and dunning
- Klipfolio: custom dashboards pulling data from multiple sources, ideal for more complex setups
Product analytics & usage tracking
Understanding how users engage with your product is key to improving retention and driving upsells.
- Mixpanel: tracks user behavior and funnels, great for growth teams
- Amplitude: offers advanced analytics and cohort analysis to find patterns in usage
- Heap: automatically captures every interaction, allowing retroactive analysis without extra tagging
Customer success & retention tools
Keeping customers happy is cheaper than acquiring new ones! These next level tools help provide further insights to reduce churn and identify expansion opportunities.
- Gainsight: enterprise-grade customer success platform with health scoring and playbooks
- ChurnZero: designed specifically for SaaS to reduce churn and increase adoption
- Totango: modular and easy to implement, great for midsize growth-stage companies
What’s next?
As your SaaS company grows, investing in the right tools isn’t optional, it’s strategic. The right stack not only saves time and reduces errors, but also helps you surface insights that guide smarter decisions. Whether you’re tracking revenue, monitoring user behaviour, or forecasting growth, the tools you choose will shape how confidently and efficiently you scale.
We are here for you at all stages of the journey, so get in touch to talk through making sure you are ready, at the right time, for success. Let’s go!
