How I Forecast SaaS Revenue (My Exact Model & Process After 1,000+ Forecasts) | The SaaS CFO
•December 10, 2025
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Why It Matters
The framework gives SaaS finance leaders a proven, data‑driven method to produce accurate, board‑ready revenue forecasts, reducing guesswork and boosting investor confidence.
Summary
Ben, the SaaS CFO, walks viewers through the exact revenue‑forecasting process he has refined over more than a thousand forecasts for SaaS and AI companies. The on‑demand session expands on a recent live webinar, showing how to build a defensible, board‑ready P&L by structuring financial data, bookings, people metrics, and a monthly recurring revenue (MRR) schedule into a single Excel model.
He emphasizes four foundational data sources: a SaaS‑specific chart of accounts, a bookings export that distinguishes new versus existing ARR, a detailed headcount report that aligns payroll to departmental P&L lines, and an MR schedule that captures revenue by customer and month. By converting raw invoice data into an MRR waterfall and retention template, the model automatically drives subscription, usage, and services revenue forecasts. Each revenue layer—new, expansion, downgrade, churn—is assigned its own assumption, allowing analysts to fine‑tune forecasts month‑by‑month based on historical trends.
Key examples include his mantra that “your MR schedule is gold,” the use of a customer‑count waterfall to validate new ACV, and a services‑revenue module that ties onboarding backlog to billable FTE capacity. For enterprise deals, he demonstrates a deal‑by‑deal tab that captures large contracts, while SMB motions rely on aggregate ACV forecasts. The model also accommodates unpredictable usage revenue with free‑form rate‑volume calculations and seasonal indexes.
The takeaway is a repeatable, data‑driven framework that makes SaaS revenue forecasts transparent, granular, and easily defendable to CFOs, boards, and investors. By standardizing the data foundation and providing a downloadable Excel template, Ben equips finance teams to move beyond high‑level growth percentages to a nuanced view of churn, expansion, and services backlog, ultimately improving budgeting accuracy and investor confidence.
Original Description
If you’ve ever struggled to build an accurate, defendable SaaS revenue forecast… this is your masterclass.
I just wrapped a popular live webinar walking through exactly how I forecast subscription, usage, and services revenue after completing 1,000+ forecasts and helping hundreds of SaaS companies. In this on-demand session, I take you behind the scenes of my full process—step-by-step.
Whether you’re the founder building your first model, an FP&A leader tightening your forecasting engine, or a RevOps pro needing better revenue clarity, this session gives you the blueprint.
Inside the video, we cover:
🔹 The 4 critical SaaS finance data sources your forecast depends on
• Financial data
• Bookings
• People data
• Customer / revenue data (MRR schedules)
🔹 Why a clean SaaS P&L is the foundation of forecasting
Stop relying on the default QBO/NetSuite P&L—your board hates it. I walk through how to SaaS-ify your chart of accounts, structure revenue streams, and set up a consumable P&L format.
🔹 The power of a proper MRR schedule (your forecast’s “gold”)
You’ll learn how to convert raw invoice data into a clean MRR schedule, build dollar-based and logo-based retention waterfalls, and use them as the engine of your revenue model.
🔹 How to layer subscription revenue forecasts with precision
Instead of “we’ll grow 10%,” we break down each layer:
• New MRR
• Re-activations
• Expansion
• Downgrades
• Churn
• Different ACVs for each layer
This is how you create a forecast you can defend to investors.
🔹 Forecasting usage revenue (simple when it’s predictable, messy when it’s not)
I show you how to approach usage modeling whether it’s recurring or highly seasonal, and when to rely on rate × volume logic.
🔹 Forecasting services revenue—the hardest revenue stream
Learn how to model backlog, billable FTE capacity, pull-through rates, and how new customers drive implementation revenue. Most teams get this wrong—I show you how to get it right.
🔹 A walkthrough of my full Excel model
You’ll see the exact tabs, logic, waterfalls, and assumptions I use in the model downloaded thousands of times. I also highlight how the full forecast connects back into a clean, consumable SaaS P&L.
If forecasting feels overwhelming—or if your current model feels messy, inconsistent, or hard to defend—this session will help you reset your foundation and build a forecasting engine you can trust every month.
To learn more about Ben check out the links below:
📬 Subscribe to Ben’s daily metrics newsletter:
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📘 SaaS Metrics courses:
👥 Join Ben’s SaaS community:
🔗 Follow Ben on LinkedIn:
#saas #thesaascfo #podcast #saasmetrics #saasmetricsschool #benmurray
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