Excellent SaaS Billing Tool

Very great tool to automate billing and revenue accounting

Pros

Handles rev rec seamlessly, great for B2B billing, super customizable, syncs with salesforce extremely well

Cons

Doesn't have a great customer facing billing or purchasing option, some of the ARR calculations can be a little wonky

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. ;)

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

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).