For a pre IPO or IPO company that is in a very mature stage, has multiple products and sales teams, and has audited income statements, balance sheets, and cashflow statements. The forecast model would refer to new customers as billings, and the subscription revenues are then either recognized whether services delivered in this period or deferred, but the cash has been received, but the service has not been delivered in this accounting period. This is where the annual license period does not match with the company's accounting period. When forecasting such businesses on an annual basis, the growth of new customers and the renewals from existing customers are the main growth drivers.

The value of a B2B SaaS business is in its ability to not lose customers and maintain and grow the renewal rate. Other terms that you might see within the financial statements of more mature businesses are total billings, which comprises the new customers and customer renewals, which are typically forecast based on an annual growth rate. Total billings are the subscription fees collected from customers and are recognized in the income statement as revenue either in the current year, for example, 70%, where the remainder is then recognized over time. Usually the next year, let's say 30% total revenues is the sum of the revenue recognized in the current period and the deferred revenue from the prior period. Whether cash was paid for the full annual subscription, but the service had not yet been delivered in full, deferred revenues are recorded in the balance sheet as liabilities and the year over year change will be recorded in the cash flow statement. A good proxy to measure the growth of a SaaS company is to look at the billings growth rate rather than revenues, because revenues understates the true value of the customer, which gets recognized over time. A SaaS company could show stable revenue for a long time just by working off its billings backlog, which isn't then backed up by new customers, which means they're delivering the service where the cash has already been received, which makes the business seem healthier than it truly is, and is not reflective of the cash currently being received.

Other revenues may be fees associated with onboarding new customers, maintenance fees, or license fees for situations that are not considered recurring revenues, such as a one-time, 90 day trial period at a reduced fee.