Entries by Sarah Schlott

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8 Operational Assumptions That Break SaaS Financial Models

Why Operational Assumptions in SaaS Financial Modeling Break Forecasts Most SaaS forecasts fail before they begin—not because of bad math, but because of unexamined operational assumptions. The model isn’t broken. It’s just blind. We assume reps ramp in 90 days. That onboarding is uniform. That conversion rates scale with pipeline volume. These inputs feel safe […]

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7 Non-Financial Drivers of SaaS Forecast Failure (And How to Model Them)

Why Financial Models Break (Before the Numbers Do) Most forecasts don’t fail because your CAC was off by 2%. They fail because something nobody tracked—like late enablement, internal misalignment, or approval drag—slowed the business without ever touching the model. Traditional FP&A focuses on cost, margin, and bookings velocity. But SaaS companies don’t move in straight […]

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Why Is Deferred Revenue Forecasting Important in SaaS?

Deferred revenue is not a new concept. Most SaaS CFOs can recite ASC 606 in their sleep. But what we rarely see—even at $100M+ ARR—is a proper deferred revenue forecasting model. Recognition schedules? Everywhere. Forward-looking visibility? Nowhere. This matters because deferred revenue isn’t just an accounting exercise—it’s a leading indicator of renewal behavior, cash leverage, […]

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5 Budgeting Habits That Keep SaaS CFOs Up at Night

Every SaaS CFO knows the drill: You lock the budget. You run the numbers. You present the deck. And three weeks later, the CEO pivots the go-to-market strategy—and your model collapses in public. This isn’t a tooling issue. It’s a strategy issue. Specifically, five budgeting habits that look like discipline but behave like chaos. If […]

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6 Headcount Planning Strategies That Won’t Blow Up Your Burn Rate

Most SaaS companies don’t run out of cash because the product failed. They run out of cash because they hired like maniacs. You see it after every funding round. One day it’s 14 people in a Slack thread. Three months later, it’s 43 full-timers, 7 open reqs, and a mysterious Enablement team nobody understands—but they’re […]