SaaS accounting services for tech start-ups
Accounting for SaaS and the fast-growth journey. We work with fast-growth tech and SaaS founders on their journey from Seed to Series A and beyond to help accelerate business growth.
The fast-growth journey
As your business scales, the complexity and the demand for data and insight quickly grows, while you become more stretched. Our elastic finance team® is the perfect solution to free you and your team up to focus on what you do best.
As well as all the accounting for SaaS stuff you'd expect, we'll help you look credible with investors, give you the insight you need and support you on investments, transactions and the rest of the fast-growth journey.
Find out more - check out our interactive journey planner below
Incorporation and set-up
It’s important to set up the right way to avoid early mistakes. You will need to be on top of the basics:
- Company set-up and articles of association.
- Shareholders’ agreement.
- HMRC set up (Corporation Tax, PAYE and VAT).
- Pension set up.
- ICO registration.
Basic accounting and compliance
While it may not seem the most important at pre seed stage, starting as you mean to go on can save a lot of costly time and errors in the future:
- Basic bookkeeping.
- Payroll.
- VAT.
- Basic quarterly reporting.
- Cash flow, cash burn and cash runway monitoring.
- Annual financial statements.
- Corporation Tax.
Investment and early-stage strategic planning
If you’re serious about growth plans, you should consider how to best present yourself and evaluate the right structure and initial funding:
- Investment structure ready for seed funding.
- Available grants and other incentives.
- High-level project plan for minimum viable product (MVP), total addressable market (TAM) and initial strategy.
Company purpose
You will already have the company purpose in your head, but it’s good to set this out on paper and further define it so you can articulate it to others:
- Mission.
- Vision.
- Values.
- Define category.
Seed funding round
Funding is more than just having a great idea. You need to stand out from the crowd with your idea, management team and overall story. Now is a good time to get your collateral more structured:
- Business model.
- Forecast.
- Pitch deck.
- Key metrics.
- Structured historical financials.
- (Seed) Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS/EIS).
Read more about our investor readiness services.
Finance support: beyond the basics
As you grow your SaaS business, you will have greater demands for operational and strategic finance. Now is a good time to move beyond the basics:
- Reviewing your finance system.
- Optimising processes.
- Basic cash flow forecasting.
- R&D tax credits.
Read more about our system implementation, forecasting and R&D tax services
Growing the team
Much of your seed funding will be to grow your team as you further prove your model and assumptions. You will need to attract, retain and manage the best talent:
- Remuneration packages.
- Share options.
- Employment contracts.
- Staff handbooks.
- Expenses management.
Read more about our EMI services.
Strategy and business planning
As you start to think about fundraising, you should consider your current governance structure:
- Refine commercial model.
- Improved governance.
- Board composition and meeting frequency.
- CFO level strategic finance support.
- Quality of reporting.
- Structured approach to developing a robust strategy.
Systems landscape
As you look to become more streamlined and present relevant metrics to your Board and investors, you will want to take advantage of data across your business. You should further evaluate the right technology and data strategy for growth:
- Finance system health check.
- Systems improvements and recommendations.
- System integration opportunities.
- Expenses management.
- Forecasting
- Optimise/implement other relevant systems e.g. CRM, timesheets, project management.
- Overall technology and data strategy.
Read more about our system implementation and integration services.
Proving your business model
At this point, data becomes fundamental to decision-making. It’s vital to track the right data to prove your business model to potential investors:
- Collate and build relevant historic metrics e.g. CAC, LTV, churn, payback period, AOV etc.
- Understand basic segmentation across your customer cohorts.
- Validate your business model.
- Clarity on total addressable market (TAM).
Operational finance: initial steps
Investors will be put off by lack of quality information and finance governance. Now is a good time to focus on improving processes, forecasting, reporting and insight:
- Xero health check.
- Process optimisation and standard operating procedures.
- Proper period-end close.
- Segregation of duties.
- Management reporting with commentary.
- Standard financial ratios.
- Cash flow forecasting and cash control.
- Fractional CFO.
- R&D tax credits.
Read more about our smart finance function® services and our proprietary data analytics.
Preparing for Series A
Series A raise values have increased recently which generally means you will need to be well prepared for due diligence. You will need to have a strong story, well-rehearsed pitch and a robust forecast:
- Finance function health check.
- Legal health check.
- Tax health check.
- High-quality historic financial output.
- Investor focused forecasts and modelling.
- Your story and pitch deck.
- Data room prep.
- Mock due diligence.
- Cap table management and modelling.
- Valuation.
- (Seed) Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) eligibility.
Read more about our investor readiness services.
Series A process
While you should focus on getting as much prepared in advance of the process, there's still a lot of work to be done during the raise process:
- Due diligence support and responses.
- Pitch rehearsal and refinement.
- Contact with suitable investors.
- Term sheet implications and negotiations.
- (Seed) Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) application.
Read more about our investor readiness services.
Team growth
Much of your Series A raise will be focused on expanding your team, and likely at more senior levels:
- Remuneration strategy.
- HR and expenses policies and management.
- EMI compensation.
- Candidate selection.
- Senior hires.
Read more about our EMI services.
Business-wide performance management
As your business scales, so does the volume of information. Implementing proper reporting and forecasting aligned to your strategy becomes even more important:
- Aligning reporting to your strategy.
- Real-time SaaS data analytics.
- Structured budgeting process.
- Rolling forecasting.
- Board reporting.
Read more about our SaaS data analytics services.
Operational finance: further development
Your finance function needs to be professional to deliver what you and your Board need to make well informed decisions:
- System transformation and integrations.
- Process optimisation.
- Strategic board support.
- Fractional CFO Board representation.
- Strategic management commentary.
- Cashflow forecasting and revisions.
- Budget v actual reporting.
- Sector specific business KPIs and metrics.
- Key accounting policy papers e.g. revenue recognition.
- Custom real-time data analytics.
Read more about our smart finance function® services and our proprietary data analytics services.
Strategy, business planning and enhanced governance
Investors will look for strong financial governance, robust business plans and a well-considered strategy and OKRs:
- Improve governance and organisation structure.
- Support with structured Board meetings and minutes.
- Board reports and commentary.
- Audit RFP.
- Ongoing risk assessment.
- Business continuity planning.
- Increased CFO support.
- OKRs and project management.
Product and value proposition
With investment in place, your business can accelerate. Now is a good time to review and refine your target customer and make sure your total addressable market is achievable:
- Revenue and pricing model.
- Product roadmap.
- Expansion opportunities.
Series B+ funding round
At this stage, you have proved your commercial model and have sufficient historic numbers to support additional investment. Series B funding is much more sophisticated than earlier rounds and you will need to be well guided and prepared:
- Finance function health check.
- Legal health check.
- Tax health check.
- High-quality historic financial output.
- Broker selection.
- Investor focused forecasts and modelling.
- Your story, pitch deck review and pitch prep.
- Teaser, look book and Information Memorandum (IM).
- Data room prep.
- Mock due diligence.
- Cap table management and modelling.
- Valuation.
- Term sheet negotiations.
Read more about our investor readiness services.
Enhanced finance function and international expansion
Additional financing typically means international expansion. This brings added complexities of dealing in new and different jurisdictions:
- PeopleOps hire.
- Accelerated and international hiring.
- International HR policies.
- Hybrid finance team.
- Local country accountants.
- Finance function and systems transformation.
- International tax structuring.
- International sales tax compliance.
- Transfer pricing.
Read more about our smart finance function® services and our system implementation services.
Acquisitions
An acquisition might be the best option to help consolidate your position as market leader:
- Target selection.
- Due diligence.
- Deal structure.
- Negotiations.
- Post-acquisition business integration.
- Post-acquisition finance function harmonisation.
Exit support
An exit can come at any time. The process will be intense so you will need the right support team including a strong CFO so you can focus on continuing to run the business without distraction:
- Exit route evaluation.
- Key part of your transaction team.
- Cap table and funds flow management.
- Working capital negotiations.
- Sale and purchase agreement support and warranty advice.
- Earn-out requirements.
- Deal logistics.
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