This article explains the principles that FirstOfficer.io uses to calculate your metrics.

SaaS metrics aren't controlled by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). As a result, different apps may use different calculation principles.

If you have a questions about how your metrics are calculated and can't find the answer here, please contact support .

What is included in MRR and Revenue?

Taxes and Stripe fees are included in both Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) and Revenue. Refunds and discounts are excluded.

MRR only includes revenue from subscriptions. Any other charges invoiced with a subscription are excluded, as are all other single purchases.

FirstOfficer.io supports volume-based charging if you have implemented it using Stripe subscription's quantity field.

Customer is lost when a subscription isn't renewed

Customer is lost when the recurring revenue ceases. For accurate financial analytics, customer is NOT lost on the day he cancels his subscription.

If customer cancels and gets a refund, he is lost at the date when the refund is given. Otherwise he is lost at the date when he should pay again, but doesn't.

FirstOfficer.io does not currently offer Committed Monthly Recurring Revenue (CMRR). CMRR would book the MRR losses based on cancellation date, but it does not reflect the recurring revenue collected from customers during the month.

Churn baselines

Net Churn is calculated using the previous month's total MRR as its base.

All other churn rates check that customer can actually be lost, i.e. he has an active subscription that should be renewed.

New customers are excluded from all churn rates. The loss of new customer reduces New MRR.

All recurring revenue is normalized, including refunds and discounts

To offer most accurate picture of your finances, all transactions that affect MRR are normalized.

The method is similar than revenue recognition in accrual accounting, but as the target is to create comparable numbers different month lenghts are not adjusted for.

In plain english, a subscription of $120/year results in $10 MRR each month - no matter how many days that month has.

Also refunds and discounts are normalized. If you give a discount, the discount will be split evenly throughout the subscription period. If you give a refund, the refunded amount will be split to the whole subscription period. The only exception are the refunds that are given at cancellation time.

Historical numbers are updated when necessary

Because refunds are normalized, previous months' MRR may change when new refunds appear. If you refund a customer today, you gave back money that was paid in previous month - thus the previous month's MRR need to be adjusted.

You can see the difference between refunds given and refunds booked to MRR in Revenue view.

Prorations are normalized to keep plan and upgrade MRR accurate

When customer upgrades or downgrades his subscription and prorations are used, FirstOfficer.io normalizes the prorations to make sure that individual plans' MRR and upgrade/downgrade MRR stay accurate.

Example:

A customer is now on plan A, $20/month and upgrades to plan B, $40/month. When he changes the plan mid-month, the proration refunds $10 to plan A and charges $20 for plan B.

If these amounts would be booked as they are, plan A would have $10 of MRR and plan B would have $20 of MRR. Total MRR would change from $20 to $30 and this upgrade would be valued at $10 of MRR, which would be wrong.

FirstOfficer.io will book $0 for plan A and $40 for plan B. This way it can accurately calculate that this upgrade caused $20 increase in MRR.