{"id":10203,"date":"2019-10-23T12:13:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T16:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/?p=10203"},"modified":"2026-02-12T05:12:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T10:12:56","slug":"9-steps-to-how-one-subscription-system-of-record-helped-create-a-unicorn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/9-steps-to-how-one-subscription-system-of-record-helped-create-a-unicorn\/","title":{"rendered":"9 steps to how \u201cOne subscription system of record” helped create a unicorn"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cBillionaire Robert F. Smith\u2019s Vista Equity Partners has agreed to acquire a majority stake in <\/span>Acquia Inc. in a transaction valuing the enterprise software company at close to $1 billion, including debt, <\/span>according to people with knowledge of the matter<\/span><\/a>.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What did Acquia, the leading provider of cloud-based, digital experience management solutions, do on the financial front to gain this kind of attention?  <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s go back in time to several years. They were expanding internationally with a land-and-expand billing model, and every day the finance team was manually managing the complex MEA transactions with siloed billing, revenue in spreadsheets, and cash-based accounting. One day, they had to deploy ASC 606<\/a> at the same time as they managed over 1,600 customer contracts. In order to scale, they decided to deploy Sage Intacct to be <\/span>the single source of financial truth for subscription billing and revenue management<\/span> that automates forecasting on billings, cash, and revenue.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since that day, with a single subscription system of record, they natively integrated the order from Salesforce directly to subscription billing<\/a> in Sage Intacct, cutting order-to-bill processing time by 50%. This led to reducing DSO by 20% and reducing their deferred AR balance by one-third. All of this led to an operational cash flow increase of tens of millions of dollars.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To better inform decisions on directing this cash, they automated financial processes to the point that they reduced the financial close from 10 days to three days. They were able to able to deliver the budget to actuals to the business leaders 11 days after the monthly close and reduce their cash forecasting variance by 80%. They did all of this while adopting the strict reporting requirements of ASC 606.  <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These critical process improvements allowed them to drive big business value. For example, they now had the data, cash flow, forecasting, and confidence to accelerate investment in hiring for a new product line that would further support their customers\u2019 digital experience goals. The new product line outflanked a competitor that had attempted to establish a niche in its customer base resulting in increased CLTV per customer and reduced churn.  <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The moral of the story is you can now have the confidence and cash flow to accelerate the growth of your subscription billing model with \u201cone subscription system of record\u201d from Sage Intacct.  <\/span>It is best captured by Emily Drahzal, Head of Revenue Operations at Acquia, who said, \u201cWe have brought predictability to our revenue.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What steps led to that success?<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

From talks with 87 companies, a global survey of 500+ SaaS firms, feedback from industry analysts, and insights with the world\u2019s top technology investors, an obvious pattern has emerged: having one master view of the customer subscription lifecycle increases cash flow, reduces churn, produces better forecasts, and enables teams to work better together.  <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Companies of all industries and sizes are shifting their customer relationships from transactional to longer-term subscriptions. The benefits are proven\u2014to attract more customers, create more predictability in revenue, and achieve higher customer lifetime value. Subscriptions require new capabilities beyond traditional enterprise resource planning (ERP) <\/span>that legacy order-based financial systems can\u2019t support.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This shift requires the finance and revenue teams to work together and more efficiently on the key processes that deliver value for the company. These teams and their various roles include:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n