Setting Up Subscription-Based Reporting

Service companies (SaaS, professional services, etc.) usually generate recurring revenue based on subscriptions with their customers. JustOn supports subscription billing with recurring and transactional (usage-based) items. Now the companies need continuous reporting about subscription-based KPIs, too - usually, MRR (monthly recurring revenue) and Churn (rate of discontinued subscriptions or lost revenue).

To enable informative reports, JustOn has introduced metric objects and relevant processes:

• Subscription Metrics
• Cash Metrics

Businesses can use the metric records in order customize the JustOn reports or to build their own reports in Salesforce.

Subscription Metrics

The Subscription Metric object is related to the account, the subscription and the item, and set up to track item changes.

Info

The Subscription Metric object and the related functionality are available as of JustOn 2.50.

Data Model

The main component is the Subscription Metric object. It holds the following information:

Field	Description
Account	The related account (secondary master-detail); the metric record is deleted when the account is deleted.
Actual	The actual amount of this metric Previous/Initial + Change
Change	The change of the MRR based on the previous MRR.
Churn Rate (Gross)	The gross churn rate is the ratio between Churn and Actual. IF(Actual=0,1,Churn/Actual)
Churn Rate (Net)	The net churn rate is the ratio between Change and Actual. IF(Actual=0,1,Change/Actual)
Churn	The absolute churn if the change is negative. IF(Change < 0,ABS(Change),null)
Date	The effective date of this metric, depends on the kind of change (add/subtract) and the service period/next invoice date of the item.
Expansion	The absolute expansion if the change is positive. IF(Change > 0,Change,null)
Growth Rate	The growth rate is the ratio between Change and Previous. IF(Previous=0,null,Change/Previous)
Initial	Holds the initial MRR value. Only filled in the first metric of an item.
Is Final (checkbox)	Marks the final metric record after setting an end date or deactivating an item.
Is Latest (checkbox)	Marks the latest metric record for a particular item.
Item	The related item that caused the current change.
Next Metric	Links to the next metric record, which supersedes the current record.
Previous Metric	Links to the previous metric record, which is superseded by the current record.
Previous	Holds the MRR value of the previous metric record.
Retention Rate	The opposite of the gross churn rate. The sum of the two is always 100%. 1-ChurnRateGross
Subscription	The related subscription (primary master-detail); the metric record is deleted when the subscription is deleted.
Type	The type of this metric, depends on the item's type. MRR - Monthly Recurring Revenue MRUR - Monthly Recurring Usage Revenue

In addition, there are two rollup summary fields on the subscription that hold the actual recurring revenue.

Label	API Name	Data Type	Description
Monthly Recurring Revenue	MRR	Currency	SUM over all metric records with the following condition: (Type EQUALS Monthly Recurring Revenue) AND (Is Latest EQUALS True)
Monthly Recurring Usage Revenue	MRUR	Currency	SUM over all metric records with the following condition: (Type EQUALS Monthly Recurring Usage Revenue) AND (Is Latest EQUALS True)

Setup

Setting up the Subscription Metric object and related functionality involves

• Configuring subscription metric permissions
• Creating subscription metric processes
• Optionally, enabling additional subscription metric information for the metric records

Configuring Subscription Metric Permissions

Because of the master-detail relationship with the account, you must manually configure the access to the Subscription Metric object.

1. Create a new permission set.
   For details, see Create Permission Sets in the Salesforce Help.
2. Assign Read, Create and Edit permissions for the Subscription Metric object to the new permission set.
   For details, see Edit Object Permissions in Profiles in the Salesforce Help.

Info

Field access is already assigned via the permission set JustOn Read/Write and must not be configured specifically.

Creating Subscription Metric Processes

The actual creation of subscription metric records is controlled by two processes that run on subscriptions and items.

Info

There are no conditions needed, the processes must just call the required Apex code.

1. In Setup, open Process Builder.
   In Salesforce Lightning, navigate to Process Automation > Process Builder.
   In Salesforce Classic, navigate to Create > Workflow & Approvals > Process Builder.
2. Create the following processes.
   For help about creating processes, see Lightning Process Builder in the Salesforce Help.

Option	Value
Object	Subscription
Start the process	when a record is created or edited
Criteria for Executing Actions	No criteria—just execute the actions!
Action Type	Apex
Apex Class	Subscription: create metric record on change
Set Apex Variables	The id of the ended/canceled subscription
	Field Reference: [ONB2__Subscription__c].Id

Option	Value
Object	Item
Start the process	when a record is created or edited
Criteria for Executing Actions	No criteria—just execute the actions!
Action Type	Apex
Apex Class	Item: create metric record on change
Set Apex Variables	The id of the added/changed item
	Field Reference: [ONB2__Item__c].Id

Enabling Additional Subscription Metric Information

For reporting purposes, you may wish to copy more values from an item to the resulting subscription metric record, for example, the product group in order to allow a corresponding grouping in the MRR reports.

1. On the Subscription Metric object, create new custom fields with the same API name and data type as the fields on the item.
   For help about creating fields, see Managing Object Fields.

▶ This copies the corresponding field values to the subscription metric upon record creation.

Workflow

Subscription metric records are created on subscription or item change if the following conditions are met:

• Subscription
  • Status is set to Inactive, Canceled or Upgraded
• Recurring item
  • Billing type is Recurring or Recurring Prorated
  • Item is created
  • Quantity or price is changed
  • Item is deactivated
  • End date is set
• Transactional item
  • Billing type is not Recurring, Recurring Prorated or One-Time
  • Item is created
  • Expected revenue is changed
  • Item is deactivated
  • End date is set

In addition, the following rules apply:

• Each item has its own metric records.
• Each change results in a new metric record that is linked to the previous record.
• The first metric record has filled the field Initial.
• Subsequent metric records have filled the fields Previous and Change.
• The first record is set to the start date of the item.
• Subsequent metric records are set to the next invoice date of the item.
• The final metric record is set to the end date of the item.
• Once a final metric record has been created, no further changes are recorded.

Cash Metrics

The Cash Metric object is related to the account and the subscription, and set up to track subscription amount changes. This way, businesses can generate reports on their cash flow.

Info

The Cash Metric object and the related functionality are available as of JustOn 2.52.

Data Model

The Cash Metric object holds the following information:

Field	Description
Subscription	The related subscription (primary master-detail); the metric record is deleted when the subscription is deleted.
Account	The related account (secondary master-detail); the metric record is deleted when the account is deleted.
Date	The effective date of this metric (month and year, always first day of a month)
Amount	The sum over all items of this month for the subscription
Month	The month of the effective date
Year	The year of the effective date

If you want to consider, for example, the payment due of the subscription or account in your reports, you can add a custom formula field:

Label	API Name	Data Type	Description
Due Date	DueDate	Formula(Date)	= ONB2__Date__c + ONB2__Subscription__r.ONB2__PaymentDue__c

Setup

Setting up the Cash Metric object and related functionality involves

• Configuring cash metric permissions
• Creating cash metric processes

Configuring Cash Metric Permissions

Because of the master-detail relationship with the account, you must manually configure the access to the Cash Metric object.

1. Create a new permission set.
   For details, see Create Permission Sets in the Salesforce Help.
2. Assign Read, Create and Edit permissions for the Cash Metric object to the new permission set.
   For details, see Edit Object Permissions in Profiles in the Salesforce Help.

Info

Field access is already assigned via the permission set JustOn Read/Write and must not be configured specifically.

Creating Cash Metric Processes

Usually, you want JustOn to run the cash metric algorithm when the subscription changes, for example, when new items are added. To this end, you create a dedicated process.

1. In Setup, open Process Builder.
   In Salesforce Lightning, navigate to Process Automation > Process Builder.
   In Salesforce Classic, navigate to Create > Workflow & Approvals > Process Builder.
2. Create the following process.
   For help about creating processes, see Lightning Process Builder in the Salesforce Help.

Option	Value
Object	Subscription Item
Start the process	when a record is created or edited
Criteria for Executing Actions	Formula evaluates to true subscriptions: [ONB2__Subscription__c].ONB2__Account__c != null && ISPICKVAL([ONB2__Subscription__c].ONB2__Status__c , 'Active') && ( ISCHANGED([ONB2__Subscription__c].ONB2__StartDate__c ) || ISCHANGED([ONB2__Subscription__c].ONB2__EndDate__c ) ) items: [ONB2__Item__c].ONB2__Subscription__c != null && ( ISCHANGED([ONB2__Item__c].ONB2__StartDate__c ) || ISCHANGED([ONB2__Item__c].ONB2__EndDate__c ) || ISCHANGED([ONB2__Item__c].ONB2__Quantity__c ) || ISCHANGED([ONB2__Item__c].ONB2__Price__c ) || ISCHANGED([ONB2__Item__c].ONB2__ExpectedRevenue__c ) || ISCHANGED([ONB2__Item__c].ONB2__Commission__c ) || ISCHANGED([ONB2__Item__c].ONB2__Discount__c ) || ISCHANGED([ONB2__Item__c].ONB2__Active__c ) || ISCHANGED([ONB2__Item__c].ONB2__BillingPeriod__c ) )
Conditions	Customize the logic subscriptions: 1 AND 4 AND (2 OR 3) items: 1 AND (2 OR 3 OR 4 OR 5 OR 6 OR 7 OR 8 OR 9 OR 10)
Action Type	Apex
Apex Class	Create cash metric record on change
Set Apex Variables	The id of the added/changed item subscriptions: Field Reference: [ONB2__Subscription__c].Id items: Field Reference: [ONB2__Item__c].Id

Workflow

If set up accordingly, JustOn creates and updates cash metric records on subscription or item change. The following conditions apply:

• One cash metric record corresponds to a monthly invoice run for a subscription. That is, JustOn "simulates" an invoice run per month and aggregates the amount of the resulting invoice line items for each subscription in the Amount field of the cash metric record.
• With respect to transactional items, the monthly amount of transactional items is derived from the Expected Revenue field of the item record (ONB2__ExpectedRevenue__c).