{"id":16160,"date":"2023-02-21T21:24:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-22T02:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/?p=16160"},"modified":"2023-04-24T04:42:55","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T08:42:55","slug":"intacct-forecasting-reporting-in-a-recession-what-cfos-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/intacct-forecasting-reporting-in-a-recession-what-cfos-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Forecasting &#038; reporting in a recession: what CFOs need to know"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"entry-header has-dark-background-color entry-header--has-illustration entry-header--has-illustration--generic\">\n\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-header__row row align-center\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"col col-lg-7 col-xlg-6 entry-header__content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"component component-single-header\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"entry-header__misc text--subtitle text--uppercase text--small\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/category\/technology-innovation\/\" class=\"entry-header__link\">Technology &amp; Innovation<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"entry-title-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"entry-title\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tForecasting &#038; reporting in a recession: what CFOs need to know\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"entry-header__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t<div class=\"single-post-details container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"col\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"posted-on \"><time class=\"entry-date published\" datetime=\"2023-02-21T21:24:00-05:00\">February 21, 2023<\/time><\/span><span class=\"reading-time\"> min read<\/span>\n\t\t<button\n\t\t\ttype=\"button\"\n\t\t\tclass=\"social-share-button button button--icon button--secondary js-social-share-button\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-title=\"Forecasting &#038; reporting in a recession: what CFOs need to know\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-url=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/intacct-forecasting-reporting-in-a-recession-what-cfos-need-to-know\/\"\n\t\t\tdata-share-text=\"Please read this interesting article\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__share-label\">Share<\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__copy-label\" hidden>Copy Link<\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"social-share-button__copy-tooltip\" aria-hidden=\"true\" hidden>Copied<\/span>\n\t\t<\/button>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/header>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-post-author has-dark-background-color alignfull\">\n\t<div class=\"container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"col\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"co-authors\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t<div class=\"entry-author-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t<a class=\"entry-author\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/author\/david-appel\/\">\n\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/07\/David-Appel-headshot-2023-1.jpg\" class=\"entry-author__image\" alt=\"David headshot\" \/>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"entry-author__name\">David Appel<\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">When the market goes south, you need to have your forecasting and reporting capabilities dialed in more strongly than ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">In-depth and accurate reporting will enable you to keep your board and team up to date and confident that you can ensure continued profitability. Forecasting will help you analyze the impact of different plans and decisions before you commit to them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Automation is helping SaaS companies thrive despite the recession with more accurate and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/glossary\/what-is-financial-planning-and-analysis-fpa\/\">effective financial planning and analysis (FP&amp;A).&nbsp;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Recession FP&amp;A requires accurate forecasting<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">One of the best ways to outwit and outcompete your SaaS company peers during a downturn is to be able to see the future. Automated forecasting gets you as close as humanly possible to being able to do just that.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">When you know you can count on accurate forecasts to help you with recession FP&amp;A, you\u2019ll be free to explore every possible cash flow avenue, such as:&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Switching billing timeframes: <\/strong>When times get tough in the market, look for strategies to speed up payments you\u2019re expecting. Offering an annual billing option for a slight discount is a great example of this, and can help provide a cash flow boost during hard times.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/03\/image-32-1024x497.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17978\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Knowing Your Cash Burn Rate: <\/strong>For recession FP&amp;A, your cash burn rate (CBR) is one of the most important metrics to follow. Your CBR tells you how many months\u2019 worth of expenses you can cover with your current cash reserves. Automated forecasting allows you to plug in an endless variety of different factor combinations, so you can instantly test what your CBR would be under different circumstances.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Offering a free trial: <\/strong>It\u2019s important to incentivize your prospects as heavily as possible to sign up for your company\u2019s services\u2013and everybody loves the chance to try something for free. Automated forecasting can help you see exactly how any discounts you offer will impact your bottom line, so you can give your customers the best deal possible while still acting in your own best interest.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Paywall removal: <\/strong>Removing various paywalls to attract more customers is another popular way to attract new users during a market downturn. If you have paywall-gated content that performs exceptionally well, consider making that content freely available to draw in new users. Automated forecasts can help you determine which paywalls you can afford to remove for strategic purposes and how long it would take you to recoup the paywall funds.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Forecasting hiring decisions: <\/strong>Hiring is one of the more complicated <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/why-financial-planning-is-important-for-saas-cfos-during-a-market-downturn\/\">aspects of recession FP&amp;A<\/a> because it involves many interlocking components. Do you know which departments would benefit most from new talent and what results you hope to achieve? Do you know precisely how much you can afford to spend? Cloud-based forecasting will allow you to hire confidently by answering all these questions and many others.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Moving away from manual methods and embracing automated forecasts is one of the best moves you can make for recession FP&amp;A. But it\u2019s hardly the only one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Robust and accurate SaaS reporting for a recession<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Accurate cloud-based reporting is just as crucial to have in your tool belt when the market turns for the worse. Automated accounting software will facilitate in-depth reporting on essential metrics such as your:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Customer growth and expansion KPIs: <\/strong>In challenging economic times, your future trajectory is more important than your current position. In other words, focus on long-term growth rather than fast money. Metrics like expansion MRR and upgrade MRR should be watched closely, as well as daily and monthly active users (DAU &amp; DMU). These metrics will help you create a steadily growing customer base over time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/03\/image-33-1024x534.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17979\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Net promoter score: <\/strong>Your net promoter score relies on your customers\u2019 answers to online surveys, with scores ranging from 1-10 as answers. As the simplest example, imagine you send out one survey with a \u201cgeneral satisfaction\u201d rating of 1-10. Most companies consider 1-6 as negative reviews, 7-8 as neutral, and 9-10 as indicating your \u201cpromoter\u201d customers. Your promoter score is the overall percentage of promoters you have relative to overall survey respondents.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Onboarding engagement rate: <\/strong>Especially for corporate software products, the new user onboarding process tends to involve various tutorials and intro videos. Your onboarding engagement rate helps you gauge whether your customers are interfacing with this key content or not. This especially matters during a recession: if people aren\u2019t heavily engaging with your product in the opening stages of use, that doesn\u2019t bode well for user retention.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Outstanding support tickets and average resolution time: <\/strong>These are essential customer success metrics for tracking your recession FP&amp;A efforts. Showing a low number of outstanding support tickets at your next board meeting will help establish that your user interface isn\u2019t problematic for your customers. And a low average resolution time for complaints and questions means you have a well-run customer service department.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Automation is your best bet for generating accurate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/5-financial-reports-every-business-should-be-running\/\r\">financial reports<\/a> to help steer your recession FP&amp;A game plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Embrace the cloud for recession forecasting &amp; reporting<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Forecasting and reporting in a recession are too important to leave to spreadsheets and manual processes. There are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/sage-business-cloud\/intacct\/resources\/product-tours\/sage-intacct-product-tour-for-general-business\/\">ways to cut the timing to produce your metrics<\/a>, and reduce your variance, by up to 80%.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"single-cta\">\n\t<div class=\"single-cta__positioner\">\n\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__wrapper has-dark-background-color\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"single-cta__title h3\">Subscribe to our Sage Advice Newsletter<\/h2>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"single-cta__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Get our latest business advice delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a\n\t\t\t\t\t\thref=\"#gate-ab515c6e-7e90-4c2f-a67e-113872516e8b\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\tclass=\"single-cta__button button button--primary\"\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t>Subscribe<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1440\" height=\"810\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/GettyImages-1073797282-1440x810.jpg\" class=\"single-cta__image\" alt=\"Working from home with tea in hand\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/04\/GettyImages-1073797282-1440x810.jpg 1440w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 48em) 33vw, 100vw\" \/>\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Automated forecasting and reporting can help your company navigate the recession and emerge stronger than ever. Here\u2019s what CFOs need to know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1433,"featured_media":16161,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sage_video":false,"post_featured_image_hide":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[334,427,420],"business_type":[41],"lilypad":[],"context":[418],"industry":[450],"persona":[],"imagine_tag":[443,444],"coauthors":[599],"class_list":["post-16160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology-innovation","tag-automation","tag-cfo","tag-cloud-financial-management","business_type-growing-business","industry-software-saas"],"sage_meta":{"region":"en-us","author_name":"David Appel","featured_image":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/02\/GettyImages-1288428995-1.jpg","imagine_tags":{"443":"Intacct Large Business","444":"Intacct Medium Business"}},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Sage Advice US","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/1433"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/16161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16160"},{"taxonomy":"business_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/business_type?post=16160"},{"taxonomy":"lilypad","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/lilypad?post=16160"},{"taxonomy":"context","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/context?post=16160"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=16160"},{"taxonomy":"persona","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/persona?post=16160"},{"taxonomy":"imagine_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/imagine_tag?post=16160"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sage.com\/en-us\/blog\/api\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=16160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}