Combing upgrade deals with existing renewal deals?

[LDunne]

Hi all,

We're a SaaS company so recurring revenue is what we deal with.

When a new customer closes, we have a renewal deal for next year automatically created. Let's say this customer wants to expand their licenses, how would we add this uplift in revenue to our renewal deal, automatically?

Currently we're creating a separate deal for the upgrade, which I think seems fair. The struggle is combining the deals so the renewal £ amount is up-to-date.

Thank you!

[Jonno_Price · Accepted solution]

Hi @LDunne ,

Perhaps it would be easier to update the original deal value at the time of renewal instead of creating a new and seperate "Upgrade deal". 

A solution could be to add a new stage to the pipeline where the original deal resides (also with Closed Won status).. eg. "Renewal Deals with Upsell" 

So instead of creating a seperate deal for upgrade - you find the original deal, move it to this new Closed Won stage and add the revenue uplift and any required notes / details. 

Not sure if that works?

[JessKing86]

The "recurring revenue" reporting and fields, while super redundant, work great except for in THIS area of "combo" deals; ie deals that are renewals WITH upgrades or renewals WITH downgrades. For us, we want every major transaction on a record- therefore, we'd create and close a deal for:

• the original win: recurring revenye type= new business
• upgrades/downgrades along the way: recurring revenue type= upgrade/downgrade
• renewals: recurring revenue type= renewals
• AND renewals that have changes in revenue- I'm being told by support that you'd only create ONE deal for this. But- then you're forced to have this renewal=recurring revenue type= upgrade, and you end up losing all record of there having been a renewal. 

I don't understand how b2b saas is making this work

[kvlschaefer]

Hi @JessKing86,

Thank you for feedback.

I would highly recommend you to please submit this feedback to our ideas forum.

Our product team, who monitors the forum regularly, can read your specific use case and understand why this would be a useful functionality or change. It also helps other customers facing the same issue to advocate for its implementation on your behalf by upvoting on the thread as well. 

Thank you,

Kristen

[Olivier_novable]

I'm having the same question, after seeing this video, I thought I'd create a second sales pipeline for the renewals, but I'm puzzle as how to manage the upgrades (and potential downgrades)

[Josh · Accepted solution]

Hi @LDunne, 

I typically advise creating the new deal as you explained. I would have the new deal contain the total amount and only calculate that MRR for the year, not the prior year. You might want to include contract start date and end date.

As far as upgrades, I like to use the ticket pipeline to track this. 

• 90 days before renewal (or whatever makes sense to you) create a new ticket in a ticket pipeline (customer success) and assign to the CS rep
• As the CS rep explores the possibility of upgrades they would check the appropriate boxes on the ticket
• After confirming renewal status, it automatically creates the new deal including whatever subscription changes are taking place

Obviously, this process works best when there is a customer service rep/account rep involved. If the upgrades are completely touchless, you'd need a different approach. 

Hopefully this gets you moving in the right direction!

Thanks for the ping @TitiCuisset! 

[Jonno_Price · Accepted solution]

Hi @LDunne ,

Perhaps it would be easier to update the original deal value at the time of renewal instead of creating a new and seperate "Upgrade deal". 

A solution could be to add a new stage to the pipeline where the original deal resides (also with Closed Won status).. eg. "Renewal Deals with Upsell" 

So instead of creating a seperate deal for upgrade - you find the original deal, move it to this new Closed Won stage and add the revenue uplift and any required notes / details. 

Not sure if that works?

[MRoberts8]

@Jonno_Price this makes a ton of sense. My follow-up question would be whether the new renewals deal created from the original deal would update from this mid-term uplift. In other words if a deal experiences an upgrade in the middle of the term, is there a way to automate that being reflected in the renewals deal?

[TitiCuisset]

Hi @LDunne 

Thank you for reaching out.

I want to tag some of our experts on this - @Josh @Jonno_Price @noahmckeon do you have any thought for  @LDunne on this? 

Thank you!

Best, 

Tiphaine