Beyond the Balance Sheet: SaaS CFO Priorities for Growth and Innovation

Chief financial officers (CFOs) are no longer limited to just managing capital allocation and ensuring profitability. The SaaS industry is growing more competitive, and today’s CFOs are managing more than ever before. The modern SaaS CFO is key in aligning financial goals with customer success strategies, ensuring every dollar spent generates long-term value.

In fact, today’s CFO is the CEO’s right-hand partner. CFOs are tasked with strategic planning, data-driven decision-making, risk management, and financial transformation, just to name a few tasks. This new environment is a game changer for CFO priorities, and those who fail to realign their focus risk falling behind.

Today’s CFOs are no longer confined to traditional finance roles; their priorities are both invaluable and far-reaching. As a provider to hundreds of SaaS companies, Zuora has worked with many successful CFOs. We’ve observed the latest CFO trends and seen how these innovative leaders reshuffle priorities to invest their energy in strategies that generate results.

Explore this guide to discover the top priorities for CFOs in today’s complex and competitive market.

 

1. Automate for greater operational efficiency

Billing, reporting, payments, and revenue recognition are all influenced by various factors that make managing finances more complex for businesses with recurring revenue. Some CFOs continue to rely on outdated, manual processes that are not only time-consuming and inefficient but also prone to errors. Additionally, manual workflows demand a larger workforce and can lead to decreased employee satisfaction.

Legacy systems and outdated processes just won’t work in today’s environment. If your current system can’t handle these complex situations, it’s time to find the best CFO tools and reshuffle your priorities. Ask yourself:

• Does your billing platform perform complex calculations for usage billing and account for a wide range of pricing rules?
• Do you have a smart payment system that knows when to retry credit cards for the right reasons? For example, when a transaction fails due to insufficient funds but not when the account is closed?
• Can your payment collection system automatically send payment notifications and cancel services?
• Do you have a system that automates revenue recognition, or are you relying on billing amounts to calculate how much you need to recognize each month?

 

These are just a few concerns that can reveal inefficiencies in SaaS financial management. All of these issues can lead to tremendous financial and operational headaches — and yet, they all have a simple solution.

Operational efficiency is a must, which makes automation the number-one CFO priority. Automation tackles low-hanging fruit by streamlining simple tasks and optimizing workflows to address the particular needs of your subscription business.

For example, Zuora customer Zendesk used a homegrown billing system that couldn’t handle customer events, such as expansions and upgrades. This process required the finance team to look at invoices and re-update information while the engineering team spent valuable development time adding new features and packages. Zendesk embraced automation with Zuora to manage everything in a single system, allowing it to innovate and iterate products, marketing, pricing, and promotions in one central location. The upgrade was such a success that Zendesk added over 30,000 new subscribers in three years.

 

2. Own SaaS metrics and reporting

How is your company really doing? Gut feelings won’t cut it in the C-suite. CFOs must rely on quantitative data to track, understand, and optimize core metrics. Metrics and reporting should be an essential CFO priority moving forward, especially for crucial metrics such as:

• Monthly recurring revenue (MRR)
• Annual recurring revenue (ARR)
• Customer churn rate
• Net retention rate
• Customer lifetime value (CLV)
• Days sales outstanding (DSO)

 

While tracking these metrics allows CFOs to get a general idea of company performance, these numbers are notoriously difficult to calculate. If you rely on spreadsheets with unreliable data from disparate systems and custom formulas, calculations are even more challenging.

So, how can CFOs access these essential metrics and trust that they’re accurate?

You need a reliable system that automatically generates accurate metrics. Relying on spreadsheets and complex formulas will only hinder progress, especially when the board requires financial data under tight deadlines. CFOs should focus on streamlining metric tracking, ensuring that key numbers are accessible at the click of a button, so you can consistently stay on top of your business’s performance.

Zuora did just that with Zoom, the world’s most prominent video conferencing solution. Zoom needed to sustain growth by offering more strategic upsell paths to its users. Using Zuora, Zoom got the operational backbone it needed to support multiple growth initiatives. Immediately after the switch, Zoom saw a 215% year-over-year growth in usage. Today, Zoom hosts over 3.3 trillion meetings annually and is valued at $20 billion.

 

3. Target priority growth strategies

Exponential growth is a clear indicator of a thriving business, but maintaining that growth can be challenging. Financial teams are now more involved in approvals, forecasting, and reporting, making growth a top priority for CFOs.

The aim is to sustain strong growth, though this is often easier said than done. With SaaS models constantly evolving, these proven growth strategies are increasingly becoming the responsibility of the CFO:

• Tailored product editions
• Upselling
• Cross-selling
• Usage-based pricing
• Dynamic pricing optimization
• Self-service sales
• Assisted sales models
• International expansion
• Enterprise offerings
• Strategic acquisitions

 

These are just a few strategies CFOs can use to sustain growth. However, simultaneously leveraging these strategies is impossible, so you need a strategic growth plan. One of the best ways to prioritize growth is by switching to a scalable system that supports flexible packages, pricing, and user experiences.

Zuora customer DocuSign needed a scalable billing platform to support tremendous user growth. It maintained rapid growth (135% year-over-year user growth) by executing growth strategies, including new pricing plans and cross-selling new solutions into new markets.

 

4. Future-proof your business and build to scale

CFO priorities can’t focus solely on today’s financial performance. The C-suite must forecast the future and take action today. How will you support growth?

Hiring more employees increases overhead costs and requires a long ramp-up period. Additional employees are a short-term fix for the inefficiencies of manual processes. To make matters worse, 76% of accounting teams say their go-to-market models, products, and pricing are becoming more complicated.

CFOs need long-term, scalable solutions that they can replicate across the company’s lifetime. Sixty-eight percent of accounting professionals say they don’t have the right technology to address growing business demands, so CFOs must find future-proof tools that support greater flexibility.

 

5. Strategic financial leadership

CFOS are no longer number-crunchers but strategic leaders who shape company vision. Financial strategy is still a major priority for CFOs to ensure long-term profitability and align business goals with financial health.

To lead effectively, today’s CFOs should focus on:

• Cross-functional collaboration: Work closely with marketing, sales, and product teams to align financial objectives with broader business goals.
• Risk management: Identify potential financial risks and develop contingency plans to maintain stability during market fluctuations.
• Investor and stakeholder relations: Communicate financial insights compellingly to board members, investors, and key stakeholders.

 

Zuora client Ubisoft is a prime example of strategic financial leadership in action. The video game publisher realized it needed to expand internationally with tailored subscription offers for each market. Zuora scaled Ubisoft’s subscription business to accommodate a 200% increase in online traffic, allowing the brand to expand into a new market and leverage new earning opportunities.

 

6. Technology and digital transformation

Digital transformation is the heart of modern finance. Traditional finance systems and manual processes can no longer keep up with the speed and complexity of today’s subscription-based and recurring revenue business models.

CFOs who embrace digital transformation gain a competitive edge, so they must champion technological investments that support scalability and efficiency. Whether adopting AI-driven financial forecasting or optimizing subscription revenue models, CFOs are pivotal in guiding their companies through the digital transformation journey.

For example, Highland News & Media needed to transition from print content to a digital content management system (CMS). Through Zuora, Highland re-engaged with readers by simplifying its back-end system for billing, relationship management, and more. This process improved the subscriber experience and allowed Highland to use dynamic offers that increased conversions and sales.

 

7. Capital allocation and investment strategies

Effective capital allocation may seem like a small consideration, but it’s an incredibly important CFO priority. Every dollar spent should contribute to long-term growth, profitability, and shareholder value. In today’s fast-moving SaaS landscape, CFOs must prioritize strategic investments while ensuring financial stability and operational efficiency.

CFOs should work alongside other members of the C-suite to allocate resources across several areas, including:

 

• Product innovation
• Scalable infrastructure
• Customer acquisition
• Customer retention
• Strategic mergers and acquisitions
• Talent development

 

For example, Zuora customer MarketWise realized it needed new fraud protection technologies and systems as it grew. Eager to minimize the cost of chargebacks, its team allocated resources to Zuora Fraud Protection, which stopped nearly 100% of all typical card-testing activities in just five months. That’s an incredible return on investment in a short amount of time, saving MarketWise thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in labor.

 

Scale smarter and grow faster with Zuora

As the CFO’s role continues to evolve, embracing automation, strategic leadership, and data-driven decision-making is no longer optional — it’s essential. Today’s CFOs must prioritize efficiency, scalability, and innovation to navigate the complexities of the SaaS industry.

Zuora’s comprehensive subscription management platform is purpose-built to handle the intricacies of this subscription economy. From automating billing and revenue recognition to delivering actionable insights through robust reporting and analytics, Zuora empowers CFOs to make data-driven decisions confidently. Our seamless integration with existing ERP and CRM systems ensures a unified view of financial health, eliminating data silos and inefficiencies.

Zuora is the clear choice for reducing complexity and meeting a modern CFO’s priorities. Learn how Zuora Revenue simplifies revenue recognition, forecasting, and much more.