Accounting Services for SaaS Companies
Revenue recognized under ASC 606, MRR and ARR that tie to the books, Stripe reconciled and sales tax by state.
SaaS accounting services
SaaS accounting services keep the books for a software company that bills by subscription: revenue recognized over the service period under ASC 606 rather than when cash arrives, deferred revenue tracked and rolled forward, MRR and ARR reported from numbers that tie to the general ledger, Stripe payouts reconciled to invoices and fees, and sales tax on software tracked state by state. Atidiv does this for US SaaS and subscription companies in QuickBooks, Xero or NetSuite. It starts with a review of your books and billing, and pricing is custom, set once we know what the books need.
Why cash-basis books mislead a SaaS company
The trouble with SaaS books is that the bank account tells the wrong story. A customer who pays $12,000 up front for a year has not given you $12,000 of revenue this month. Books that count the cash make a good month look great and a quiet one look like a crisis, and the first time anyone notices is usually during a fundraise or an audit.
Booked on a cash basis so far? We rebuild revenue from your billing history.
What we do for SaaS companies
ASC 606 is the US GAAP standard for revenue from customer contracts. The principle under US GAAP is that you recognize revenue when you earn it, which can be earlier or later than when you are paid. For a plain subscription that means spreading each invoice evenly over the period it covers. Stripe’s revenue recognition tooling applies this to each invoice line item: it treats each one as its own performance obligation, defers the recognizable amount when the invoice is finalized, and amortizes it over that line item’s period.
Real contracts are rarely plain. We work through the parts that move revenue:
- Annual and multi-year prepayments, spread month by month
- Implementation, onboarding or setup fees, and whether they belong with the subscription
- Upgrades, downgrades and proration in the middle of a term
- Usage-based and overage charges, recognized as the usage happens
- Discounts, credits, refunds and disputes against revenue already recognized
- Annual contracts invoiced outside Stripe, brought into the same schedule
We keep a revenue schedule for every contract, tie it to the general ledger each month, and document the treatment so your auditor or CPA can review it. Our startup accounting services page covers how this fits with investor reporting.
Deferred revenue is the liability on your balance sheet for cash collected for service not yet delivered. Stripe splits it into a current balance, for amounts expected to be recognized within the next 12 periods, and long-term deferred revenue for the rest. Each month we roll the balance forward: opening deferred revenue, plus new billings, less revenue recognized, less refunds and credits, equals closing deferred revenue. If that roll-forward does not tie, something in billing or the books is wrong, and the time to find it is before it reaches a board deck.
MRR is not an accounting number, which is why it so often disagrees with revenue. Stripe defines MRR as the sum of the monthly-normalized value of all active and past-due subscriptions, excluding taxes, free plans and metered products, and lets you choose whether discounts are subtracted. Its downloadable reports include an MRR roll-forward and a log of every MRR change for each customer: new subscribers, upgrades, downgrades, reactivations and churn.
We report MRR and ARR alongside GAAP revenue each month, with a short bridge that explains the difference, so the number on the pitch deck and the number in the financial statements can both be defended. Where you use Stripe’s figures, we check the settings behind them. Where you want your own definitions, such as counting annual contracts or usage differently, we write them down and apply them the same way every month. Churn, net revenue retention and ARPU come from the same data.
Stripe pays out in batches. Its documentation explains that an automatic payout can include funds from many transactions, and the payout reconciliation report shows which ones, while manual payouts cannot be traced to transactions in the same way. We reconcile each payout to the charges, refunds, disputes and Stripe fees inside it, tie invoices to accounts receivable, and record fees as an expense rather than letting them disappear inside a net deposit. Customers who pay by bank transfer or card outside Stripe are matched against their open invoices the same way.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair, a state can require a seller with no physical presence there to collect its sales tax once sales into the state pass its threshold. For SaaS, the harder question is whether the state taxes software at all, and the answers differ.
- New York: The sale to a New York buyer of a license to remotely access software is subject to state and local sales tax, sourced to where the buyer uses it.
- Washington: Remote access software, prewritten software provided remotely, is a retail sale subject to sales or use tax.
- California: California does not currently tax prewritten software accessed remotely with no tangible media, under Regulation 1502. This changes on January 1, 2027, when SB 122 extends California sales tax to SaaS and remotely accessed software. From each state’s published tax guidance: New York’s software bulletin, Washington’s digital products guidance and California’s Regulation 1502 and SB 122, October 2026.
We track billings by customer state each month, flag states where you are nearing a threshold or selling a product the state taxes, and keep tax collected separate from revenue. Where you want it handled end to end, our Tax service runs the nexus study, state registration, and sales tax filing from these numbers.
How it starts
All of this sits within our finance and accounting services, where the same team can add budgeting, forecasting and fractional CFO support as you grow.
We look at your books, your Stripe account and billing settings, your contracts and your current revenue method, and list what needs fixing.
We agree a chart of accounts for SaaS, with revenue by product or plan, deferred revenue, and cost of revenue split out, and connect the reports Stripe provides.
If past months were booked on a cash basis, we rebuild revenue schedules and deferred revenue for the periods affected so the history holds up.
From then on, we reconcile, close and report every month, and review the numbers with you.
The monthly close and reporting
Each month you get reconciled bank, card and Stripe accounts, a profit and loss statement on an accrual basis, a balance sheet with deferred revenue rolled forward, the MRR bridge, and cash burn and runway. We prepare US GAAP-compliant statements in QuickBooks, Xero or NetSuite. For board packs and investor updates, see our financial reporting services.
How pricing works
Price depends on the number of customers and invoices, the billing systems in use, how complex your contracts are, and how far behind the books are. Pricing is custom, and there are two ways to engage. A fixed monthly retainer covers ongoing bookkeeping and the close, based on volume, entities and complexity. A project covers a one-time clean-up, a migration, a software set-up or a backlog, such as rebuilding revenue after a move to accrual accounting. The proposal follows the review.
Frequently asked questions about SaaS accounting
If you report on US GAAP, for an audit, a lender or investors, revenue has to be recognized as the service is delivered. Many early companies keep cash books until a fundraise or audit makes accrual books necessary. We can convert past periods when that happens.
We work with it where you have it, check its settings and rules against your contracts, and post its results to your general ledger. Where you do not, we keep revenue schedules ourselves.
MRR is a run-rate of active subscriptions. Revenue is what was earned in the period, including usage, services and proration, and excluding what is deferred. We report both with a bridge between them.
Yes, through our Tax service, which runs nexus studies, state registration, and sales tax filing. On this engagement we track billings by state, flag thresholds and taxable states, and keep the records a filing needs, then file where you want us to.
QuickBooks, Xero and NetSuite. We work in your file, so your CPA and your team keep their access.
Yes. We tie revenue, deferred revenue and the balance sheet, and prepare the schedules an auditor or investor asks for first.