You can customize your ARR reports in Equals by adjusting the configuration settings of your ARR Build to match your business's specific revenue logic. Any changes you make will automatically trigger a rebuild of your ARR Build views, updating any analyses and reports built off them in workbooks. You can also make corrections to Stripe invoices and define exclusions (specific customers and domains). Doing so will override the underlying Stripe data and be reflected in your ARR Build views, so you can rest assured that any reports or analyses built off views accurately reflect your business's true ARR.

Configuring your ARR Build logic

By default, your ARR Build is configured to reflect how most SaaS businesses recognize different ARR events based on your Stripe invoices. You can edit the default configuration settings as needed for your business from your ARR Build configuration settings (Views > ARR Build > Configuration).

From here, you'll be able to determine how your business will recognize revenue across five dimensions:

1. New ARR Event

Options: Count ARR at the time of contract signing or upon the first payment.

Recommendation: Self-serve B2C companies may prefer counting ARR after the first successful payment. This lowers your overall ARR but will also prevent inflation in churn due to customers that never activate. B2B businesses may prefer to count ARR immediately.

2. Churned ARR Event

Options: Stop tracking ARR upon a customer's cancellation request or at end of the billing period.

Recommendation: Ending ARR at billing end often aligns with revenue recognition. Ending ARR on a cancellation request would enable a more accurate view of customer retention and future ARR.

3. Restarted ARR Cut-off Window

Options: Count returning customers as “Restart ARR” always or only if they return within a set time.

Recommendation: Most businesses choose to count all returning customers as Restart ARR.

4. Paid Trials

Options: Include paid trials in ARR or exclude them. Free trials are excluded by default.

Recommendation: Including paid trials could impact the start date for counting ARR. Depending on your trial conversion rates, it may also impact churn and retention metrics.

5. Discounts

Options: Ignore or subtract discounts from your ARR.

Recommendation: Subtract discounts to better reflect actual revenue collected.

If your business requires more advanced customization than what's available, or if you need help determining the configuration settings for your business, our team of Equals Experts is ready to help. Just reach out to us via the messenger in the bottom-right corner of your workspace Home.

Managing Stripe invoice corrections

While your ARR Build configuration settings will cover most cases of recognizing revenue, you can also make one-off corrections to Stripe invoices as needed. For example, you could adjust revenue recognition dates for a specific invoice to reflect when a deal was signed versus when the customer was invoiced.

You can view and edit all corrections made to date from the Data corrections tab of your ARR Build. Corrections override the underlying Stripe data, which will be reflected in the ARR Build views.

To make a correction:

1. Go to the Data corrections tab, and then navigate to Review data.
2. Select a customer to see a list of Stripe invoices associated with that customer.
3. Choose the invoice you want to correct.
4. Click Make a correction, then adjust the invoice start date, end date, and/or ARR amount as needed:
   1. Start Date: Adjust start dates to be based on contract signing, first invoice, or other custom deal requirements.
   2. End Date: Modify end dates for invoices, useful for cases when invoices are mistakenly marked as non-recurring revenue. You can adjust the end date for a specific invoice to help your ARR smoothly transition to the next billing cycle.
   3. ARR Amount: Customize amounts to reflect updated ARR values or zero out as needed for non-recurring revenue items.
5. Add a note to describe the correction if needed.
6. Click Save changes.

Corrections will be marked with a purple label in the invoice list from the Review data screen. You can return to a corrected invoice at any time to edit the correction.

Managing customer and domain exclusions

You can exclude ARR events from specific customers or domains from showing up in your ARR Build views and reports. To see a list of all exclusions made to date, go to Data corrections > Exclusions.

To exclude a customer:

1. Go to Data corrections > Review data.
2. Select the customer you want to exclude.
3. Click Exclude customer to remove them from your ARR Build.

To reinclude a customer, simply select Reinclude in ARR. Doing so will automatically trigger a rebuild of your ARR Build views.

To exclude a domain:

1. Go to Data corrections > Exclusions.
2. Type the domain name you want to exclude.
3. Click Exclude domain.

To re-include a domain, click the "X" next to the excluded domain in the list. Doing so will automatically trigger a rebuild of your ARR Build views.

Next steps

With your ARR Build configured, your ARR reports will be tailored to your business's specific revenue logic. From here, you're ready to edit (if needed) and start distributing your pre-built reports to your team, investors, or board. Then, you can build out custom analyses and reports using ARR data that's fresh, accurate, and trustworthy.