Using your BBB data, you can look at historical trends to judge how your business efforts might go in the future. It can give you an idea of whether your processes are working and can even tell you if you need to up inventory for the coming financial period. Billings are different from bookings because they report sales that have gone through. These sales were made and invoices have been forwarded on to clients or customers.
Backlog vs Bookings vs Billing: Why Track These Metrics
Backlogs show information on goods that have been sold but are not able to be invoiced yet. This occurs when an item is not in stock or in inventory, or cannot be delivered presently. Having this information gives you the power to take action when there are issues with orders that are placed but not delivered. It can help you gauge how well your processes are working, and whether you need more inventory for the coming fiscal year. If your backlog of work decreases, it could indicate a problem with your sales.
This number reflects the current demand for your products or services and can give you an idea of how well your marketing efforts are performing. However, bookings don’t necessarily reflect future demand since customers may not follow through with their purchase plans (which is why many businesses track both metrics). Your bookings become recognized revenue when you actually invoice the customer that has committed to a contract and collected payment on that invoice. Depending on the payment terms, your customer will pay you upfront, annually, or on a monthly basis. These payments are divided into equal monthly amounts for the duration of the contract, which is the revenue you can recognize each month. Should the customer have paid in advance, the remaining money you have collected is recorded as deferred or unearned revenue.
SaaS Bookings vs Billings vs Revenue: Everything You Should Know (Easy to Understand Guide)
Like other financial metrics, you need to consider SaaS bookings while keeping the what is working capital how to calculate and why its important backdrop in view, as various situations can skew this metric. Your SaaS business will likely have more than one booking in a given period of time. Deferred revenue is the money you’ve already billed, but you can’t recognize as revenue because the service is yet to be provided. Saas billings provide insight into the health of a SaaS business because it’s the money you’re owed. ’ Offers three different plans – Startup, Growth, and Enterprise, priced at $200, $500, and $1000 respectively.
Besides the billing data, you also get a visual breakdown of accounts receivable (AR) aging data and overdue invoices. Bookings, billings, and revenue in SaaS are all closely related to each other. However, industry theory the rising trend in billings shown may be misleading to leadership.
What is the difference between invoice and billings?
With a focus on content marketing, Nupura excels at crafting persona-specific content journeys that drive results. Her expertise is a valuable asset in the ever-evolving world of SaaS marketing. Now that we know what each of these terms mean, it’s also important to know how they are reported in SaaS Accounting. This is a snapshot of just how different these metrics can be despite being related to each other. Head here to dive deeper into the world of SaaS reporting and metrics analytics.
Bookings – A Head Start for Your Business
- Gross billings are the total cash you bill clients before taking out any fees or costs.
- Revenue in a SaaS business is the amount of money the company has actually earned from offering its services, no matter when the customer gets billed.
- Think of invoices as single billing moments, while billings lump all those moments together into a total for reporting stuff.
- They’re all about the total value of new deals or orders the company has managed to lock in, no matter when the cash from those deals will actually hit the bank.
- You will know if your sales team is hitting their sales goals, if orders are being delivered on time, and if your team is staying on track.
While the current financial state and recent billing performance is critical to SaaS companies, the B2B software industry tends to be held to a very high standard. Bookings are a SaaS metric that represents the value of a customer contract with a contractual spending commitment, most often structured as an annual or multi-year agreement. Billings, though, are all about the total the ultimate guide to starting a bookkeeping business amount invoiced to customers over a certain period. An invoice is basically the document a SaaS company sends out to ask a customer for payment. The terms bookings and backlog are kind of similar, but they actually mean different things. And if one of those existing customers decides to level up their plan to $15,000 a year from their previous $10,000, what extra bookings will we get from that upgrade?