5 Warning Signs Your Company is at Risk—And How to Avert an Order-to-Cash Disaster
SaaS companies once thrived on a ‘growth at all costs’ mentality, prioritizing rapid expansion over operational efficiency. However, today, the focus has shifted. Sustainable growth, continual adaptation, and flexibility are now the keys to success. As SaaS businesses scale and experiment with innovative product bundles, pricing models, and contracts, the pressure on the Order-to-Cash (O2C) process intensifies. Without the right systems in place, agility can quickly become a liability. In fact, three-quarters of finance leaders report increased pressure from the business to support more complex go-to-market models, but most say their tech stacks simply can’t keep up. As a result, Finance and Product teams frequently resort to manual workarounds.
How did we get here? In developer-centric or product-led growth (PLG) organizations, Engineering often oversees O2C. While this may work in the early stages, as new revenue streams emerge, Engineering’s quick fixes can turn into long-term liabilities. Engineers may not fully grasp the intricacies of revenue recognition, audit requirements, and compliance, which can lead to financial and operational risks slipping through the cracks.
As is often the case, the way out of this quagmire can be found in the success stories of pioneering changemakers. Finance leaders, like Hubert Ban, Chief Accounting Officer at BigCommerce, are stepping up to own O2C processes, ensuring systems are not only compliant but scalable—tackling potential risks before they spiral out of control.
Keep reading to discover the telltale signs that your O2C process might need an overhaul and learn from industry-leading finance professionals who are driving change and turning O2C into a strategic advantage within their organizations.
1. Delays lead to innovation bottlenecks and slower time-to-market
Maybe this sounds familiar: your Product teams are voicing concerns about go-to-market blockers; introducing new pricing models or packaging is taking months instead of weeks. If you dig deeper, you might hear that adding a new SKU or implementing usage-based pricing has to be hard coded by Engineering. Not to mention Finance has to evaluate the revenue recognition and tax implications each and every time.
It’s a more common story than you might think. In fact, a staggering 76% of Finance leaders report that their go-to-market models, products, and pricing are becoming increasingly complex, but most say they are still lacking the technology to address these growing demands effectively.
To keep up, Finance teams often have no choice but to add more manual workarounds, while Engineering works to update disparate systems. The result? Product experimentation, go-to-market speed, and revenue growth all begin to take a hit.
Meanwhile, rather than dedicating their efforts to core product development, Engineering teams who oversee O2C are frequently diverted to manage and maintain internal billing systems and provide data for Finance. This shift in focus drains Engineering capacity, causing innovation to stall and product releases to slow down.
The solution: Get ahead of complexity before it becomes a problem
When PagerDuty began accelerating and scaling the selling motion to larger enterprise customers, the complexity of the deals, and related revenue models, quickly grew. Jane Koltsova, Sr. Director, Global Revenue Controller, was part of the internal group tapped to address these challenges head-on before they became a serious problem to the company overall.
Through continuous learning and adapting, Jane and her team were able to stay ahead of the growing complexity, turning what could have been a major roadblock into a strategic advantage. Planning for revenue recognition challenges early allowed PagerDuty to avoid large scale risk and compliance issues as the company ventured into more complex enterprise deals. Jane’s approach involved integrating as many stakeholders as possible into a unified system that streamlined workflows and ensured as much communication and transparency as possible across departments. This integration helped identify major issues before they became significant blockers (or mitigation plans could be put in place), enabling the company to scale more smoothly without compromising on financial accuracy.
2. Manual work overload and ballooning headcount
Faced with disjointed Order-to-Cash processes and systems, Finance leaders often have no choice but to add manual revenue recognition tasks and more staff to accommodate the work. But they’re drawing from a shrinking pool. Across the SaaS sector, an accounting talent shortage is making it harder than ever to build and retain a strong Finance team.
If you’re seeing this warning sign in your organization, don’t ignore it. Lack of automation and an ill-equipped Finance team can quickly lead to skyrocketing risk and costs, as overwhelmed staff make more mistakes and crumble under the workload.
The solution: Increase end-to-end automation, not staff size
Gusto’s CAO, Sean Flynn, watched the business evolve from clickthrough offerings to more sophisticated product lines—and he knew that simply hiring more accountants wouldn’t be sustainable in the long run.
Rather than overburden a growing team with manual processes, Sean championed a forward-looking Order-to-Cash solution that could keep pace with Gusto’s rapid expansion. By acting decisively, he not only prevented operational bottlenecks and risk but also demonstrated how Finance could guide technology investments to fuel smarter, more efficient growth.
3. Revenue recognition roadblocks
Finance faces immense pressure to complete the month-end close accurately and on time, especially when it comes to revenue numbers. But as bad data hygiene in upstream processes increases and a lack of integrations leads to greater manual data entry, you may see your close times start to suffer.
Maybe your Finance team is exporting a year’s worth of data into spreadsheets to reconcile bookings, billing, and revenue discrepancies due to a lack of end-to-end O2C automation. Month-end close is delayed, errors increase, and the risk of potential restatements is greater than ever. And the confidence gap is stark: only 44% of Finance leaders trust their revenue data accuracy. The impact of unreliable data ripples through the entire organization, affecting everything from strategic planning to investor relations.
While Finance leaders understand how urgent this process is, Engineering teams may be less aware of the heightened stakes.
The solution: Let Finance drive Order-to-Cash optimization
Stephanie Thorin, Senior Manager of Revenue Accounting at Hudl, knows this rev rec pain all too well. During peak seasons, Hudl’s revenue accounting team would spend a few extra days—and some very late nights—closing the books due to growing amounts of manual data reconciliation. This not only slowed down the team, it also created compliance risk.
With over 20,000 teams worldwide and growing, the Hudl team knew they had to scale financial operations to prepare for the next leg of growth. By consolidating their O2C in one system, Hudl was able to not only streamline revenue, but also their bookings and billing. Having a single financial data model enables continuous accounting, which helps the revenue accounting team work more efficiently and actually cut their close time in half.
4. Frustrated sales leaders and a proliferation of deal killers
A growing frustration for many Sales teams is the frequent “institutional no” from Finance when non-standard deals or unique customer requests arise. This reluctance to approve deviations from the norm isn’t driven by a desire to stifle innovation, but rather by the limitations of existing systems and processes that lack the flexibility to accommodate these variations.
While Finance and Sales should be collaborating to support as many deals as possible, inefficient processes and inadequate O2C systems often lead to an unnecessary backlog. As a result, Sales faces rejection more often than they should, especially when proposing special pricing, bundled offerings, or custom contract terms that may pose compliance risks. This causes delays in internal reviews, damages relationships, and leads to missed deals and growth opportunities.
The solution: Build trust and work collaboratively with sales
The transition from product-led growth to a mature enterprise sales process is never easy, especially when faced with the challenge of sustaining growth while expanding product offerings to include usage-based SKUs. As PagerDuty embarked on this journey, Jane Koltsova, Sr. Director, Global Revenue Controller, along with the extended Order to Cash team, recognized the need for change—and fast. As with any major pivot in approach, the new processes had to be calibrated and streamlined. The internal experience of sellers, as well as that of external customers, came into sharp focus. Sales teams were fielding questions about how the new SKUs, and related billing/collections cadence worked, which diverted their focus from selling.
Collaboration with Sales leaders revealed another major pain point: Sales needed to be empowered to focus on selling, not navigate a somewhat long approval process due to systems that were not fully configured for the changing environment. Jane knew that to succeed, open communication and trust between Finance (as well as Sales Ops, Deal Desk, Order Management, Collections, etc.) and Sales leadership was crucial.
By involving Finance early in the sales motion—even when ideas were still conceptual—Jane, along with the extended O2C team, ensured that systems and processes could support new initiatives. This proactive collaboration led to smoother execution and better outcomes across the board.
5. Heightened compliance risks and increased audit scope
Without the right O2C solution in place, rapidly changing business models can collide with regulations like ASC 606 or IFRS 15, introducing the potential for revenue misstatements and tax errors. Restatements, fines, or reputational harm may increase—all of which can have severe implications for a public or soon-to-be-public SaaS company.
With more manual workarounds in your O2C workflows, your auditors may also begin to expand their scope—and fees. The result? Longer, more expensive audits, along with heightened scrutiny that can stall your Finance team’s progress on other projects.
The solution: Unify your Order-to-Cash team and system to mitigate risk
As BigCommerce shifted from PLG to enterprise B2B sales, Chief Accounting Officer Hubert Ban spotted a serious compliance risk looming on the horizon. The pivot meant more complex deals, more nuanced billing terms, and a heightened possibility for revenue recognition errors that could undermine SOX compliance.
Sensing the urgency, Hubert brought together a cross-functional team of Order-to-Cash and Financial Systems experts to find a unified O2C platform. By putting Finance in the driver’s seat early, BigCommerce set itself up for cleaner audits, accurate revenue tracking, and the flexibility to handle whatever new sales strategies came next.
Turning the corner: toward a Finance-led, integrated O2C
If you recognize any of these warning signs, it’s time for a fundamental shift. Finance leaders are best equipped to streamline O2C processes, manage compliance risks, and drive scalable growth. Start by reassessing your O2C ownership and ensuring Finance takes the lead in creating a seamless, efficient, and compliant system.
Learn more about how Zuora can help you streamline your Order-to-Cash, all on one unified platform. Zuora handles the complexities of your recurring revenue business—whether you are managing subscriptions, consumption, or a variety of pricing strategies—so that you can focus on the next chapter of your growth journey.
