A waterfall that reconciles
New, expansion, contraction, churn, and reactivation measured between periods and tied back to opening and closing MRR. If the components do not add up, the model tells you rather than quietly absorbing the difference.
Subscription metrics reporting
A Power BI SaaS ARR and Churn Dashboard for Founders and Finance Teams
An MRR waterfall that actually reconciles, net revenue retention you can defend in a board meeting, and cohort curves built from your billing data. A senior US-based engineer builds it and keeps it refreshing. Most builds in 3–5 business days.
Representative dashboard — sample data
Metrics that survive diligence
Most subscription reporting falls apart under questioning
Billing platforms show revenue. They rarely show why it moved. The moment someone asks how much of last quarter's growth was expansion rather than new logos, or what net revenue retention looks like excluding the two largest accounts, the spreadsheet stops answering and someone starts recalculating.
We build the model that answers those questions the same way every time: an MRR waterfall that reconciles to opening and closing balances, retention measured on both revenue and logos, cohort curves from first invoice, and a bridge from ARR to the recognised revenue your accountant reports.
Metrics we model
- ARR & MRR waterfall
- Gross & net revenue retention
- Logo vs revenue churn
- Cohort retention curves
- CAC payback
- Burn & runway
Try us risk-free for 4 hours
Buy a block of prepaid Flex hours and, if you're unhappy within the first 4 hours, we refund you in full — no questions asked. Hours are deducted only for work you've reviewed and approved, there's no project minimum, and your banked hours never expire.
Why subscription businesses call us
Numbers a board and a diligence team both accept
You send the request; a senior engineer models your subscriptions, invoices, and CRM into one consistent set of definitions.
Retention on both axes
Gross and net revenue retention alongside logo churn, sliceable by segment, plan, and cohort — because a healthy NRR carried by three enterprise accounts is a different business from a healthy NRR across the base.
Annual and usage pricing handled
Annual contracts normalised to a monthly run rate with cash kept on its own timeline, and usage revenue split into committed and variable, so neither one disguises real contraction.
Sales and finance in one model
Pipeline from your CRM joined to billed revenue and spend from the ledger, so CAC payback and magic number come from the same source as ARR rather than three separate exports.
Diligence-ready when you need it
Documented definitions and a reconciliation to your accounting revenue mean a data room request takes an afternoon instead of a fortnight of rebuilding history.
Why is the MRR waterfall so hard to get right?
Because every component is an edge case. A customer who downgrades at renewal is contraction, not churn. A customer who cancels and returns two months later is reactivation, not new. A plan change mid-cycle splits across periods. Get those rules wrong and the waterfall stops reconciling, which is exactly when people stop trusting it.
We agree the rules with you first, then implement them once in DAX so they cannot drift. Period-over-period comparison uses a proper date table and Microsoft's DAX time intelligence functions (opens in new tab) rather than hand-built date arithmetic that breaks on a 53-week year. The measures are documented so a new finance hire can read how net revenue retention is calculated instead of reverse-engineering a spreadsheet — see Power BI data modeling and DAX for how that layer is built.
Billing platform reports vs the Power BI version
Here is where the analytics built into a billing platform stops and where the dashboard we build picks up — the same subscriptions, made reconcilable and joinable.
| Metric | Typical billing platform limitation | Power BI dashboard version |
|---|---|---|
| MRR movement | Headline MRR with coarse growth split | Five-component waterfall reconciled to opening and closing balances |
| Retention | One blended churn percentage | Gross and net revenue retention plus logo churn by cohort and segment |
| Cohorts | Fixed cohort view, limited slicing | Retention and expansion curves by acquisition month, plan, and channel |
| CAC payback | Not available — spend lives elsewhere | Sales and marketing cost joined from the ledger, payback by cohort |
| Accounting bridge | No link to recognised revenue | ARR reconciled to the ledger so both numbers stand up |
| Definitions | Vendor's rules, not yours | Your agreed rules, implemented once and documented |
Where does the data come from?
Subscriptions and invoices from Stripe, Chargebee, Recurly, Paddle, Zuora, or your own billing tables; customers and pipeline from HubSpot or Salesforce; spend and recognised revenue from QuickBooks, Xero, or NetSuite. We confirm each connection method, and how much usable history exists, in the scope estimate.
History is the constraint people underestimate. Cohort analysis needs clean subscription history from the beginning, and many companies have a migration or a pricing change that broke continuity. We would rather find that in scoping and design around it — sometimes by rebuilding the early periods from invoices — than deliver a curve that quietly misrepresents your first two years. Pipeline joins come through the same route as our HubSpot and Salesforce dashboard work. If your billing runs through Stripe, our Stripe Power BI dashboard page shows how charges, refunds, and subscription events become ARR and churn you can trust. Engineering throughput usually sits in Jira — our Jira Power BI dashboard page covers joining that data to the revenue view. IT services firms with recurring contracts should see Power BI dashboards for MSPs and IT services.
What does it cost, and how fast?
You buy prepaid Flex hours that never expire: Starter 20h at $125/hr ($2,500), Growth 40h at $115/hr ($4,600), or Power 80h at $100/hr ($8,000). A first ARR and retention build typically fits inside one block; adding CAC payback and product usage usually needs the second tier.
Traditional Power BI firms charge $175–250/hr, set project minimums, want $10K+ to start, let unused hours expire, and don't begin for 4–6 weeks. Flex Support is $100–125/hr, no minimums, banked hours that never expire, and a start this week — which matters when a board meeting or a diligence request has a date attached. See how prepaid Flex hours work.
How does it stay current?
We publish to your workspace and set scheduled refresh so the waterfall, retention, and cohort views update on their own, within Microsoft's documented Power BI refresh limits. Most teams settle on a daily refresh, with an on-demand run before board or investor meetings.
Microsoft's published data refresh limits (opens in new tab) allow up to eight scheduled refreshes per day on Power BI Pro. Beyond the schedule, the maintenance that matters is definitional: when you launch a new plan, change pricing, or add a usage component, the waterfall rules need extending. That work comes out of the same banked hours, scoped and approved before we start.
Who is this for?
SaaS founders, heads of finance, and RevOps teams between roughly one and thirty million in ARR — past the point where a spreadsheet holds up, before an in-house data team exists. If you want to expose analytics to your own customers instead, that is a different job: see Power BI embedded.
The ideal fit is a company preparing for a raise or a board that has started asking harder questions, or one whose existing metrics spreadsheet is maintained by exactly one person. If you outsource finance to an advisory practice, our Power BI for fractional CFOs page covers how they deploy the same reporting. Contact is form-only — send your request and we'll reply with a scope estimate.
What the SaaS pack includes
- ARR & MRR movement waterfall
- Gross & net revenue retention
- Cohort retention & expansion curves
- CAC payback & magic number
- ARR-to-recognised-revenue bridge
3–5
business days, typical
Prepaid
hours, never expire
You
own everything
Bank hours before your raise and spend them when diligence questions arrive. See Flex pricing →
How it works
From billing records to metrics you can defend
- 1
Send your request
Tell us your billing platform, your CRM, and how you currently define churn and expansion. We reply with a scope and hours estimate before any work begins — hours deduct only for builds you approve.
- 2
We agree rules & model
A senior US-based engineer settles the edge cases with you, builds the subscription model and DAX, and proves the waterfall reconciles to opening and closing MRR — typically 3–5 business days.
- 3
Publish & extend
We publish to your workspace, set scheduled refresh, and hand over the model and documented definitions. You own everything; new plans and pricing changes come out of your banked hours.
Representative perspective
Our board asked how much of the quarter was expansion versus new business and we could not answer without a week of work. The waterfall now reconciles every month and nobody recalculates anything.Head of finance, B2B SaaS
Representative perspective
Diligence asked for cohort retention going back three years. Having the definitions documented in the model turned what would have been a fortnight into an afternoon.Founder, vertical software company
Get subscription metrics that hold up under questioning
Tell us your billing platform and how you define churn today. We'll scope the task and tell you the hours before any work begins — drawn from prepaid Flex hours that never expire, with no project minimums and no obligation.
FAQ
Questions from SaaS finance teams
Stripe, Chargebee, Recurly, Paddle, Zuora, or an in-house billing table in your own database. Each exposes subscriptions and invoices differently, so we confirm the extraction method and how far back usable history goes in the scope estimate before any hours are used.
As five components measured between consecutive periods: new, expansion, contraction, churn, and reactivation. Every component reconciles back to opening and closing MRR, so the waterfall always adds up. We agree edge cases such as downgrades at renewal with you before building.
Yes. Annual contracts are normalised to a monthly recurring figure while cash stays on its own timeline, so ARR and cash flow never get confused. Usage-based revenue is split into committed and variable components, since blending them hides genuine contraction.
It will reconcile to it, which is the useful outcome. ARR is a forward-looking run rate and recognised revenue is an accounting measure, so they legitimately differ. We build the bridge between them so board conversations do not stall on which number is right.
Yes, and it is a natural second phase. Once the revenue model is trustworthy, joining product usage lets you see which behaviours predict expansion or churn. It is scoped and approved as its own task and paid from the same banked hours.
Book a free demo
Get senior Power BI help, on demand
Tell us the task. We scope it, you approve, and a senior consultant delivers — typically in 3–5 business days. Prepaid hours that never expire.
- Prepaid hours from $100/hour — and they never expire
- Senior-led delivery — 20+ years on the Microsoft platform
- Typical 3–5 business day turnaround
- Full refund if you’re unhappy in your first 4 hours
The fastest way to reach us is the form — tell us the task and we'll reply within one business day.