Subscription Reporting

Understanding Recurring Revenue Health

Key Metrics

• MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) – total recurring value of all active subscriptions, normalised to a monthly figure.
• ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) – MRR × 12; the headline number for subscription businesses.
• Churn Rate – subscriptions closed in a period ÷ active subscriptions at the start of the period.
• Net Revenue Retention – how existing customers' spend changes over time once upgrades/downgrades/churn are all netted together.

Grouping by Stage & Close Reason

Group the subscription list by Stage for a pipeline-style view of where every contract sits, or by Close Reason to see which cancellation reason is most common — the same discipline as CRM's Lost Reason analysis, applied to the post-sale side of the business.

Tags for Segmentation

Use Subscription Tags (plan tier, acquisition channel, industry) to segment MRR/churn reporting beyond the built-in fields — useful for answering "which plan tier churns the most" or "which acquisition channel produces the stickiest customers."

Best Practices

• Start new templates in Draft invoicing mode and graduate to full automation once trusted.
• Always capture a real Close Reason — a pile of "Other" makes churn analysis useless.
• Reconcile total invoiced subscription revenue against the Financial Reports course's Profit and Loss report monthly.
• Review subscriptions nearing the end of a fixed term well before the last cycle, not on the day it lapses.