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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 - like, for example, MRR (monthly recurring revenue) or Churn (rate of discontinued subscriptions or lost revenue).

For analytics and reporting purposes, JustOn introduces specific metric objects that can be set up to track and display invoicing-relevant changes. The metric records can give valuable insights into your business by displaying the recurring revenue for the current or a future date, recurring changes (like growth or churn), or expected cash flow on a monthly basis. In addition, you can use the metric records in order customize the JustOn reports or to build your own reports in Salesforce.

Subscription Metrics

Subscription metrics track changes to recurring or transactional items, like creation, termination, price/quantity modifications, to display the recurring revenue or growth/churn rates. Subscription metrics are related to the account and the subscription.

Info

The Subscription Metric object and the related functionality are available as of JustOn 2.50. Aggregation support has been introduced as of JustOn 2.55.

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

Subscription metric data model
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 if the change date equals the start date of the first subscription.
Is Latest (checkbox) Marks the latest metric record for a particular item criterion.
Item Criterion The criterion shows which items have been aggregated to this metric.
Items The names of the related items 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
Smooth Change The smooth change formula allows to report two consecutive metrics (within two days) as one (like -50 and +70 is reported as +20)
Subscription The related subscription (primary master-detail); the metric record is deleted when the subscription is deleted.

In addition, you can define summary fields on the subscription in order to calculate future MRR values. For details, see Creating Additional Subscription and Item Fields.

Workflow details

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 change results in a new metric record that is linked to the previous record.
  • If the change date equals the start date of the first subscription, the field Initial is set.
  • Subsequent metric records have filled the fields Previous and Change.
  • The first record is set to the start date of the item or subscription.
  • Subsequent metric records are set to the next invoice date of the item.
  • A final metric record for an item is created only if the end date of the item actually reached (that is, if the end date equals the current date or a previous date), or if the subscription is canceled.
  • The final metric record is set to the end date of the item.
  • Metrics are continued from upgraded subscriptions (related via the subscription field Previous Subscription).
Subscription metrics generation example

The following example illustrates the subscription metric generation on a basic level, that is, without applying criteria. This produces a single metric chain.

There is a subscription with the start date set to 2019-01-01 and the following items:

MRR_items
Start and end dates trigger subscription metric record creation

Based on the given subscription items, the subscription metric builder job produces these metric records:

MRR_metrics
Produced subscription metric records

# Event Modification
1 REC1 start date 50,00 initial MRR value
50,00 actual amount
2 REC2 start date 270,00 (positive) change
270,00 expansion value
320,00 actual amount
3 REC3 start date 30,00 (positive) change
30,00 expansion value
350,00 actual amount
4 REC2 end date -270,00 (negative) change
270,00 churn value
80,00 actual amount
5 REC1 end date -50,00 (negative) change
50,00 churn value
30,00 actual amount

If there are end dates set for items, JustOn produces the corresponding end metrics.

Now assume you cancel the subscription before an item end date is reached. This forces JustOn to generate one end metric record for the current metric chain that includes all items, irrespective of their end date settings.

MRR_metrics
Produced subscription metric records after cancelling the subscription

# Event Modification
1 REC1 start date 50,00 initial MRR value
50,00 actual amount
2 REC2 start date 270,00 (positive) change
270,00 expansion value
320,00 actual amount
3 REC3 start date 30,00 (positive) change
30,00 expansion value
350,00 actual amount
4 subscription end date -350,00 (negative) change
350,00 churn value
0,00 actual amount

Setting up the Subscription Metric object and related functionality involves

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 Additional Subscription and Item Fields

Subscription

Optionally, you can set up summary fields on the subscription in order to report future MRR values. The summary fields are not shipped with JustOn, but you can easily create them.

Label API Name Data Type Description
Current MRR MRR_0m__c Currency Shows the current MRR (based on the MRR job execution date).
MRR in One Year MRR_12m__c Currency Shows the MRR in one year (based on the MRR job execution date), taking account of the subscription end date.
MRR in Three Years MRR_36m__c Currency Shows the MRR in three years (based on the MRR job execution date), taking account of the subscription end date.
Expected MRR in One Year MRR_12m_f__c Currency Shows the expected (future contracted) MRR in one year (based on the MRR job execution date), ignoring the subscription end date if auto-renewal is enabled.
Expected MRR in Three Years MRR_36m_f__c Currency Shows the expected (future contracted) MRR in three years (based on the MRR job execution date), ignoring the subscription end date if auto-renewal is enabled.

Info

The future contracted MRR fields show the expected revenue based on the condition that auto-renewal is enabled for the current subscription. In this case, JustOn ignores the subscription end date, providing an optimistic forecast.

If there is no auto-renewal defined, these fields act like the other MRR fields and show the same result. That is, they take account of the subscription end date, providing a realistic forecast.

The MRR summary fields are refreshed when the MRR job is executed.

The summary fields must be of the data type Currency. The API name must use the pattern MRR_Zm__c or MRR_Zm_f__c, where

  • Z is a positive number that represents months, like MRR_0m__c, MRR_12m__c
  • f indicates that the field considers future contracted MRRs

The subscription field Last MRR Update holds the date on which the MRR fields were last calculated.

  1. Navigate to the fields list of the Subscription object.

  2. Create the summary fields as required.

    For help about creating fields, see Managing Object Fields.

Info

Make sure that the user who executes the MRR job has write access to the subscription summary fields.

Item

By default, JustOn aggregates all items of a subscription to one metric chain. In order to separate items based on a criterion (for example, product group), you create an additional criterion field on the item. Depending on your requirements, the field can be a formula or a writable field to be filled on subscription building. The API name of the field must be MRRCriterion__c.

Consider the following use case: You want to separate metrics by the product group as set for the item. To this end, configure the MRR criterion field as a formula and set the following content: ONB2__ProductGroup__c. As a result, each product group has its own metric chain, and the metric field Item Criterion specifies the product group.

  1. Navigate to the fields list of the Item object.

  2. Create the MRR criterion field as required.

    Label API Name Data Type
    MRR Criterion MRRCriterion__c Formula (Text)
    Text

    For help about creating fields, see Managing Object Fields.

Info

Make sure that the user who executes the MRR job has read access to the Item Criterion field.

Enabling Subscription Metric List Display

Optionally, you can enable the display of related subscription metrics on the subscription page using Salesforce's related list functionality (see Work with Related Lists on Records in the Salesforce Help).

  1. Navigate to the object management settings of the Subscription object.
  2. Click Page Layouts.
  3. In the Subscription Layout row, click Edit.
  4. Select the Related Lists palette.
  5. Drag the Subscription Metrics list to the Related Lists section.
  6. Click Save to save the modified page layout.

For help about modifying page layouts, see Managing Pages.

Scheduling Subscription Metric Generation

To create or update subscription metric records, you schedule the subscription metric builder job.

Note

The subscription metric builder job is available as of JustOn 2.55. Up to JustOn 2.54, subscription metrics were created by two processes that ran on subscriptions and items.

If you have updated JustOn from an earlier version, you must remove the processes and the created records, and use the job to generate new subscription metric records.

The subscription metric builder job does not require additional parameters. That is, you can set up the job directly for the corresponding Apex class BatchSubscriptionMetricBuilderJob. For details, see Scheduling Concepts.

To schedule the subscription metric builder job, you can use either JustOn's Scheduled Jobs page or Salesforce's Schedule Apex functionality. For details, see Scheduling a Job.

Via JustOn's Scheduled Jobs page:

  1. Open the Scheduled Jobs page.

    Use the following URL https://login.salesforce.com/apex/ONB2__JobsSetup, or, if you are already logged in, append apex/ONB2__JobsSetup to your org's domain name.

    As of JustOn 2.52, you can access the Scheduled Jobs page via the JustOn configuration app (App Launcher > JustOn Configuration > Jobs Setup).

  2. From the Apex Job drop-down list, select Subscription Metric Builder Job.

    The Job Name field is automatically set to BatchSubscriptionMetricBuilderJob.

  3. From the Start Time drop-down list, select the preferred execution time.

  4. Optionally, edit the displayed cron expression to adjust the execution time.

  5. Click Schedule.

    This sets up the subscription metric generation to be executed at the specified time.

Info

From the Scheduled Jobs page, you can also run the job immediately.

Via Salesforce's Schedule Apex functionality:

  1. In Setup, open Apex Classes.

    In Salesforce Lightning, navigate to Custom Code > Apex Classes.

    In Salesforce Classic, navigate to Develop > Apex Classes.

  2. Click Schedule Apex on top of the list.

  3. Specify the details as required.

    • Job Name
    • Apex Class: BatchSubscriptionMetricBuilderJob
    • Frequency: Weekly or Monthly (with an according weekday or day of month setting)
    • Start
    • End
    • Preferred Start Time

  4. Click Save.

    This sets up the subscription metric generation to be executed at the specified time.

For more details about job scheduling, see Scheduling a Job in the JustOn documentation and Schedule Apex in the Salesforce Help.

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.

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

    For help about creating fields, see Managing Object Fields.

Cash Metrics

Cash metrics track subscription amount changes in order to display a business's cash flow. Cash metrics are related to the account and the subscription.

Info

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

Cash metric data model
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
Workflow details

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).
  • JustOn creates cash metrics up to the end of the subscription or item. If there is no end date, cash metric records are produced for a maximum of 12 months.

Setting up the Cash Metric object and related functionality involves

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, Edit and Delete 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.

Enabling Cash Metric List Display

Optionally, you can enable the display of related cash metrics on the subscription page using Salesforce's related list functionality (see Work with Related Lists on Records in the Salesforce Help).

  1. Navigate to the object management settings of the Subscription object.
  2. Click Page Layouts.
  3. In the Subscription Layout row, click Edit.
  4. Select the Related Lists palette.
  5. Drag the Cash Metrics list to the Related Lists section.
  6. Click Save to save the modified page layout.

For help about modifying page layouts, see Managing Pages.

Creating Cash Metric Processes

Usually, you want JustOn to run the cash metric algorithm when the subscription or a related item changes. To this end, you create dedicated processes that run on subscriptions and items.

  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.

    Option Value
    Object Subscription
    Start the process when a record is created or edited
    Criteria for Executing Actions Formula evaluates to true
    [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 ) )
    Action Type Apex
    Apex Class Create cash metric record on change
    Set Apex Variables The id of the added/changed item/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 Formula evaluates to true
    [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 ) )
    Action Type Apex
    Apex Class Create cash metric record on change
    Set Apex Variables The id of the added/changed item/subscription
    Field Reference: [ONB2__Item__c].Id

    For help about creating processes, see Lightning Process Builder in the Salesforce Help.

Enabling Additional Cash Metric Information

For your individual reporting purposes, you may wish to add more information to cash metrics. Assume, for example, you want the cash metrics list view or a report to show the date of the expected cash flow. To this end, you add a custom formula field that evaluates the payment due of the subscription.

  1. Navigate to the fields list of the Cash Metric object.

  2. Create the following new field.

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

    For help about creating fields, see Managing Object Fields.

    You can now proceed to include this field in the list view or a custom report in order to show the expected cash flow date.