2019 was the year that B2B SaaS businesses came to terms with a big problem – managing their revenue has become so complex that it is impacting their ability to grow and prosper. 

This problem has been a long time in the making – for years, the subscription model has made SaaS increasingly complex. 

Subscriptions have fueled SaaS-specific requirements, which in turn, have created major management headaches: Accounting has become exponentially more difficult, real customer dynamics are near impossible to uncover beneath complex metrics, even calculating revenue is now a daunting (and often error-prone) activity for most B2B SaaS businesses.

Maxio delivered new revenue management capabilities this year that enable B2B SaaS companies to not only remove these business blockers – but turn them into revenue accelerators. 

This shift fueled impressive growth across the company. 

But the challenges haven’t stopped there – the reality is that billing and revenue management complexities are only growing. Now that SaaS businesses are starting to get a handle on revenue management, they’re looking for more creative pricing models that allow them to truly charge based on the value they provide customers. Granular pricing is no longer reserved simply for the AWS’ of the world – SaaS businesses want to turn their billing into a business model, and they won’t stop until they’ve found a solution. 

It’s these types of growing and evolving complexities that we’re excited to get our hands on and continue solving for customers in the new year. 

But before we start popping the champagne (or Irish Whiskey, in my case) and officially bid farewell to 2019, it’s important to take a step back and reflect on the strides we’ve made. 

Over the course of the year, we released and enhanced many significant features. Looking back, some themes emerged which, by no coincidence, line up with the core tenants of billing and revenue management complexity – Elastic Billing, Revenue Operations and SaaS Insights. Here are some of our favorites: 

• The Revenue Forecasting tool, which provides on-demand revenue forecasting based on real, historical data and actual month-over-month performance, is already being used by more than 200 users within its first month in market. And, more than 200 sales reps are managing 550 subscriptions with the Sales Commission Calculator, which gives businesses a simplified, error-free way to automate commissioning. These tools directly address some of the most painful revenue management challenges – giving SaaS businesses more insights and saving them months of manual work. 
• The ability to associate different prices and settings for any product with Product Price Points allows businesses to easily manage inevitable pricing changes that occur as they learn more about their customers and value proposition. More than 52% of our customers are using this tool to better manage their businesses – and that number is climbing rapidly. 
• New accounting standards dictate how all global businesses (with very few exceptions) must recognize and report revenue.Revenue Recognition Reporting automates a majority of the additional workload that these new standards have created, saving SaaS businesses essential time and resources. 
• The launch and subsequent enhancements to Language Settings make it easier for SaaS businesses to operate on an international scale, allowing them to translate customer-facing invoices into multiple languages – even specifying region-specific languages for different dialects. 
• Our partnership with ProfitWell gives businesses access to the company’s 100% accurate SaaS financial and engagement analytics, allowing them to focus on what matters by uncovering which areas of the business are doing well and which are not. More than 200 SaaS companies are using this integration in their everyday operations. Similarly, our partnership with GoCardless unlocks Direct Debit payments, which in turn, helps subscription businesses expand globally and quickly adapt to customers’ changing payment preferences. 

It has been a jam-packed year, but the work is never over. The Maxio team is already hard at work on new features and functionalities that will continue to solve the evolving billing and revenue management challenges of B2B SaaS businesses. I can’t wait to share more with you soon.

Cheers to all of our existing customers for your continued support and feedback. We couldn’t do what we do without you. 2020 is going to be a great year – and we’re looking forward to the great work that lies ahead.