A fantastic and much-needed platform for growing SaaS businesses

Overall, I'd say that SaaSOptics has, after some up-front work to get it configured to our requirements, completely delivered on the lofty expectations we had for it. We have a two-person finance team managing a business that's doing >$15M of ARR. As you can imagine, these brave souls simply would not have time to pull together the sort of deep multi-faceted business intelligence reports and ongoing analytics that SaaSOptics gives us at basically the push of a button. It's been a very important tool for us as we manage growth and optimize our revenue streams.

Pros

SaaSOptics is incredibly flexible and the only solution of its kind that we've seen successfully integrate both Salesforce and Quickbooks in a way that actually dramatically saves time and improves data integrity. We test drove some competing solutions (all far more expensive) and, unfortunately, many of them actually created more issues for us than they solved.

Cons

The flip side of the incredible level of flexibility/customizability that SaaSOptics has is that it is not the simplest solution to learn to work with. While recent updates continue to simplify and enhance the UX, it's still a tool best suited for "power users" and takes some time to learn and use to its fullest extent. If you expect this to be "plug and play", you will be disappointed and not get the full value of the solution. With that said, it was certainly no more complex or challenging than implementing Salesforce.com for the first time, which is basically a rite of passage for most SaaS companies, so I would not let the learning curve deter you from investing in SaaSOptics. Our experience is that benefits of the time-saving workflows and powerful reporting far outweigh the time investment required to get ramped up. Their support has always been excellent and responsive as well, which makes a big difference with a more complex product like this.

Great tool & great support

SaaS Optics does exactly what it's supposed to do & does it in a clean & clear way. Revenue recognition is complicated but they've made it so much less onerous. It's a very good idea to spend the time on the training so you can utilize the system fully - there are lots valuable tools that will save you time & confusion (ask me how I know this.) Support is on point, all the time. I never have to wait long for a response & they always address my questions or requests thoroughly. The software & site is very reliable & stable as well.

Pros

The Home screen! Love to have tons of information & links to information & processes all in one handy place. Also, they aren't wasting my time waiting for pages to load because they had to gussy it up with a lot of graphics.

Cons

There needs to be a way to set different user access levels. Also, I sometimes can't figure out how to get particular information from reports. Also, often auditors want to see the daily revenue recognition schedule & we can't seem to get that. I assume because it would be a gigantic report. I wish there were a few more embedded links. For instance, every time I change the closing date, it kind of drives me crazy that I can't just click on the date to update it, or click on "Closing Date" but instead have to click on "Update Settings." A bit more click-ficiency would be super appreciated. ;)

Does exactly what we need it to

When we went through the procurement process, SaaSOptics ended up winning over Zuora primarily on price, but also because we were impressed at the intuitive nature of the product. Since then, we haven't been disappointed. The software does exactly what we wanted it. My only qualms would be with the Finance Reporting, as not having analytical data included as optional columns makes the processes of bringing that information in painful and time consuming (downloading an analytical report and using a vlookup to cross reference based on customer or contract numbers). Overall, this is a great product, and I appreciate the constant improvements that are being rolled out regularly.

Pros

Ease of use.
Price point.
Flexible depending on business case (high volume, low dollar vs low volume, high dollar)

Cons

Lack of analytical data available in Finance reports.
Putting data in is still manual, which is okay for now but causes scalability issues.
For Auto-Process feature when syncing, user should be able to choose what data is okay to make this workable.
Once a transaction has been brought over through the syncing process, it shouldn't be brought over again (creates a duplicate issue that also makes Auto-Process feature unusable).

We implemented SaaSOptics to prepare for our first audit and eventual entry to capital market

GAAP Compliant revenue recognition and Analytics necessary to support capital market inquiries.

Pros

Our external auditors were included in the evaluation and selection process for a GAAP compliant revenue recognition package. During the audit, I was able to use SaaSOptics to quickly and easily provide revenue recognition reports and deferred revenue calculations that were reviewed and approved by our auditors. With the help of the SaasOptics implementation team, we were able to import 5 years of detail invoicing activity from QuickBooks and build a supportable balance sheet and approved revenue history. The result was a successful audit followed by the ability to provide all of the revenue reporting and analytics that our investors requested in a timely manner. SaaSOptics gave me the ability to provide deep insights into our customers, revenue patterns and our business almost instantaneously because of the reporting and analytic tools that are an integral part of the package.

Cons

I would like to the month end financial accounting interface to be more automated. It is still a manual process to prepare the necessary reports and input the month end transactions into QuickBooks.

Excellent Tool for GAAP and Non-GAAP SaaS Reporting

SaaSOptics is the best tool for subscription metrics and revenue/deferred revenue calculations that we've come across in the marketplace. It combines reliable GAAP calculations needed for financial statements with a wide range of Non-GAAP Subscription metrics. Easy to implement and plug into other cloud-based tools at a very low TCO. Customer Support has always been excellent, with prompt and thoughtful responses. Highly recommended.

Pros

Approach to calculations (decoupling of invoicing from rev rec), robust reporting suite, continued evolution of product, customer support.

Cons

Not much, can sometimes be tough to run complex reports or imports, but customer support has been able to help with this. Integrations with NetSuite/Intacct not yet available, but those are in the works.

SaaSOptics is Great

Verify the information all the time and it is always perfect, never a flaw (on their part!). Whenever help is needed they have very explicit directions loaded so 98% of the time one only needs to click Help and the answer is there at your fingertips. I'm old fashioned so everything looks too expensive to me (including bread and fruit), but the system has proven invaluable for deferring income and all of it's reports and it's ability to sync with QuickBooks in a snap, perfectly every time. So, we do not let it go. Highly recommended as one of the perfect systems out there.

Pros

The only thing that tracks deferred income and gives fantastic reports, all accurately, while syncing with QuickBooks.

Cons

Don't have periods "locked", so that can "unlock" them to make a change and then lock again so reports stay consistent. In other words, would like the QuickBooks feature of being able to go back and see the December 2016 report within the system and have a track (transaction detail report) of what was changed after the end of the period.

SaasOptics - awesome subscription management solution!

We are a rapidly growing enterprise SAAS company with 100s of customers. We plan to remain on Quickbooks for a while, and were searching for a comprehensive subscription management, billing and rev rec solution. So glad we found Saasoptics. Very clear documentation including videos, comprehensive feature set that covers all contract scenarios, and workflows that make sense for the business. We have been very happy and feel well supported too. We have the solution integrated with Salesforce and Quickbooks. I would highly recommend Saasoptics to anyone evaluating a billing solution.

Pros

- Feature set supports all contract scenarios
- Easy to get under the hood and understand how it works, builds confidence in numbers
- Integrated with Quickbooks and SFDC
- Rev rec is rock solid

Cons

I'd love to see more robust renewals management integration with SFDC. Looking forward to seeing the April release that enhances that functionality.

Future invoices, Tax options & Client Billing (info) Profiles

I do enjoy how easy it is to raise credits/invoices & sync these transactions to Quick Books from SaaSOptics. It is also very easy to reverse revenue by raising the transaction from the contract. The main issues I have, however, with this software can be narrowed down to - Future invoices, Tax options & Client Billing (info) Profiles: 1. I keep a self-maintained spreadsheet with future invoice details due to the following: Future invoices are not always pulling when the date is current; they are not appearing in the order processing (ready to bill) list within SaaSOptics because the 'e-invoice queue' check mark is dropping off. To avoid errors, to ensure that the client receives their invoice when the date is current, I track this info on a spreadsheet outside of SaaS. 2. I keep a maintained spreadsheet with billing profile information for our clients due to the following: Inconsistencies on the billing profiles between SaaSOptics, Sales Force & Quickbooks. Billing information can not be trusted, ease of use could be improved to avoid syncing headaches. To avoid errors, to ensure that the client receives their invoice with correct billing info, I track this info on a spreadhsset, outside of Saas. 3. I keep a maintained spreadsheet with tax tables and user tax details due to the following: The inability to add multiple sales tax rates in SaaSOptics / Quickbooks. Ease of use could be improved by allowing multiple rates to be added into the system & allowing tax addresses to be saved in the system. I calculate tax outside of SaaS/QB, maintain this info for reporting purposes & manually enter tax details on the tax line in QB/SaaS. My other option would be to create line items for tax ( I have discussed this option with QB) but then it would pull into SaaSOptics as a product line (not tax) which would in turn throw the financial summary out of balance. Total invoice line items scheduled would increase by the tax amount which would not balance to the revenue. 4. I pull data & cross-compare SaaSOptics with Quickbooks to fix the tax errors due to the incorrect sales tax rate is generating on the invoice. If the sales tax is blank in Quick Books but is set to taxable in SaaSOptics, an "inactive" rate pulls onto the invoice which is not at the correct rate. At the same time, when I pull this info, I also cross-compare against my self maintained spreadsheet to correct errors on the billing profiles. Thank you for your time!

Pros

Financial Summary - Overview of account

Cons

Tax options

What were they thinking?!

UI, UI, UI. My business recently enrolled in SaaSOptics, a financial reporting service for SaaS business. Seldom have I encountered a user experience so bad. For starters, there is no link for user to log in on their home page. You actually need to navigate to an obscure link hidden away in an email. And the URL is not something easy to remember. Although they do this for security reasons, to reduce the risk of accounts getting hacked. If you manage to log in, you'll find that the summary lines you want for each report, such as total, are hidden at the very bottom of the report. When the report has hundreds of lines, you really don't want to do that. Then you'll try to find the most basic things, and struggle. For example, is your report to be found under Finance Reports or Analytics Reports? Should you look in Reports Dashboards or Reports Snapshots? With titles so specific (everything in SaaSOptics is both financial and analytical in nature), who needs a General Confusion Officer? Then you'll discover what you're looking for is not there, so you'll want to create one. It's so complicated that you have to watch a 30 min video before you start. So you'll resort to their Business Metrics report, labeled "possibly the only report you'll ever need". Turns out they decided that it's better to place bar charts of completely unrelated metrics side by side than to put successive months of the same metric together. So to look at growth of any metric across just three months, you need to look at columns that span an entire page across 42 columns. Some timelines are horizontal; others are vertical. The last month I am shown is September of last year, and there is no obvious way to change the time period shown. For the love of God, can someone tell these people that user experience matters?

Pros

Still looking for a pro. Update: Within three business days of my review, I was contacted by a SaaSOptics employee with an offer to help. So I have now found a pro: their support seems to be attentive. I have found their leadership to be extremely attentive and helpful

Cons

The UI.