Easy Forecast for Capital Expenditures When I was working in airline industry, capital budgeting was a large part of the of budgeting and forecasting process. Makes sense. Lots of airplanes and equipment at the airports. You didn’t want to get your depreciation forecast wrong and mess up the cash flow forecast. Big problems. You spent […]
Sales Pipeline Conversion Model
Sales Pipeline Conversion Model I have been meaning to create a sales pipeline model for a while. How many of us forecast increases in software bookings based on the number of sales reps, their quota, and achievement levels? I can raise my hand to this question. # of Sales Reps x Quota x % Achievement […]
SaaS Financial Model – Your Financial Blueprint
SaaS Financial Model One of my most popular financials models, the SaaS Financial Model in Excel has been downloaded over 5,000 times. Whether you are starting a SaaS company or have millions in recurring revenue, my free SaaS model will help you create your first financial forecast or improve upon your existing forecast process. There […]
SaaS Revenue Forecast Model
SaaS Revenue Forecast Model I try to keep my financial statement models as simple as possible. I don’t forecast on one tab, but I also don’t have 30+ tabs of assumptions and formulas. I build my models around the operations of the business and the important metrics. Enough detail to be accurate and supportable but […]
How to Calculate Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)
What is Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) is the revenue or margin that you receive from one customer over the lifetime of that customer. The term “Customer Lifetime Value” is known by many words. It’s also known as Lifetime Value (LTV) or CLTV. In this post, I explain how to calculate Customer […]
Achieving Profitability in SaaS
Achieving Profitability in SaaS Underneath the hood, SaaS economics can get a little tricky and nuanced. Based on the economic realities of your business, do you know how fast (or slow) you are achieving profitability in SaaS? How fast a SaaS company can reach gross margin profitability is based on key SaaS metrics such as […]
How I Forecast Operating Expenses
Forecast Operating Expenses In a previous post, I discussed how I forecast headcount expenses and the related physical heads and benefits. Of course, this is just one piece of the corporate expense puzzle. It is also important to have an easy and quick way to forecast operating expenses without hard coding numbers month-by-month. Excel Template […]
How to Create the Dreaded Excel Waterfall Chart
Excel Waterfall Chart Somewhere along the line, we’ve all been asked to create an Excel waterfall chart for a Board or management presentation. Waterfall charts are a very “simple” and powerful visual method to present year-over-year changes or whatever time period you are measuring. Presenting variances via a bunch of numbers on a spreadsheet can […]
Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) – A Key SaaS Metric
How I Calculate Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) As a CFO of a subscription-based software company, unit economics are very important to understand in this role. At the top of my SaaS metrics lists is Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC). With CAC and otther SaaS metrics, I can assess the true health of the business and the […]
How I Create Detailed Headcount Forecasts
Headcount Forecasts in Excel For a software company, personnel-related expenses are usually the largest operating expense by far on the P&L (Profit and Loss Statement). As a large expense, you’ll want to forecast this as accurately as possible. I’ll walk you through how I create detailed headcount forecasts. You can download the Excel model I […]