Data Hygiene and Metrics That Matter

RevOps and Revenue leaders want to track revenue metrics with ease and accuracy. At Swantide, we recommend a few specific Salesforce configurations to maintain good data hygiene. 

We all know dirty data is useless data. One way to maintain data integrity for your revenue metrics is by configuring Product Objects for Opportunities. Leveraging the Product Object connected with the Opportunity Object creates a sort of CPQ-lite functionality and is a great way to keep revenue/pipeline data clean. 

Note: this requires some configuration. 

You'll want to configure a dedicated Product Object to inform the product/pricing on your Opportunity Object. We also recommend you create a Standard Price Book within Salesforce full of every core variation of your product/product offering with the correlated price. While that may seem like a lot of effort, it's well worth it. 

Setting it up correctly (the first time) will simplify things like Pipeline and Revenue reporting. Once you have a fully configured Standard Price Book, you can add one or multiple products to any opportunity object in Salesforce. 

So let's walk you through it!

Add Products to Salesforce Opportunities

To define revenue metrics on an Opportunity, you must add Products to the respective Opportunity. Depending on the Products added, their billing cycles, time units, and prices, the MRR, ARR, and TCV fields will be auto-calculated.

To add an Opportunity, take the following steps:

1. Navigate to the Products-related list in the upper left-hand side of the Opportunity.
2. Click "Add Products."
3. Check the box on the Product line item(s) that you would like to add to the Opportunity and Click "Next" (you can adjust the prices and quantities on the next screen).
4. Adjust the Sales Price as needed and choose the Quantity.

1. Typically, the Quantity will be "1" Standard use cases of Quantities of greater than one are when Products are charged on a per-user basis - if that is the case, and for example, you are selling to 300 users, the Quantity should equal 300

1. Click "Save" once Sales Price and Quantity are correct for the Opportunity.
   

To edit existing Opportunity Products, take the following steps:

1. Click "Edit Products."
2. Delete or edit the line items requiring updates and click "Save."

TL;DR

Clean data is critical for accurate reporting and to understand your full-funnel metrics. While this configuration may feel complex, the infrastructure sets up early stage startups for scale and ensures a solid foundation for accurate reporting.

Ps. If you're reading this and thinking, "I don't even have a Standard Price Book, Zoe," check out this blog to learn more about creating one in your instance. Salesforce configuration can be intimidating, but you don't have to do it alone! Please reach out if you want us to look at your Salesforce instance and help you with CRM configuration and management.

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