Standardize the definitions, not the tools: one KPI dictionary, each portco’s systems mapped to it, the same scorecard on the same calendar. Run it as a 90-day rollout with one named owner, and leave every company’s tech stack alone.
“ARR” across five portcos
Published portfolio-data playbooks agree on the order: definitions first, then source mapping, then a recurring cadence. Tooling comes last. Dashboards can make reporting look standardized before the underlying logic is (Planr makes this point), so lock the logic first.
The rule that holds it together: standardize what gets compared (definitions, cadence, data-quality thresholds, board-deck structure). Leave what runs the business (tech stack, industry-specific metrics, internal processes) local.
Same label, different math. These are the splits that make a portfolio roll-up meaningless. The “standard” column is JayOh’s recommended default; what matters is that every portco uses one.
| Metric | Where definitions split | Recommended standard |
|---|---|---|
| ARR | MRR × 12 vs last-month GAAP revenue × 12; services in or out; constant currency or not; signed-not-live counted or not; acquired ARR counted in the acquisition period | Live recurring subscription revenue × 12, excluding services and one-time fees, constant currency. Report signed-not-live as a separate line. |
| Net new ARR | Whether expansion, contraction and acquired ARR are netted together | New + expansion − contraction − churn, with acquired ARR on its own line. |
| CAC payback | Fully loaded vs basic vs “tweaked” CAC; same-quarter vs lagged spend | Fully loaded new-logo S&M ÷ (new-logo ARR × gross margin) × 12. State the lag. |
| Gross margin | Hosting-only COGS vs COGS that includes support, success and onboarding | Include hosting, support, customer success and implementation. |
| Churn, GRR, NRR | Logo vs revenue churn; rolling 12-month vs calendar-year windows | Report logo and revenue churn side by side. GRR and NRR on a trailing 12-month cohort. |
| Win rate | Which stage enters the denominator; disqualified deals deleted | Closed-won ÷ (closed-won + closed-lost) for deals that reached stage 2, by close date. |
| Pipeline coverage | Weighted vs unweighted; stale deals; created vs open pipe | Qualified open pipe with a future close date and recent activity ÷ remaining quota. |
| Adjusted EBITDA | Bespoke add-backs; sponsor and lender versions differ | One add-back schedule, with the lender and sponsor versions reconciled to it. |
Sources for the splits: Ordway’s review of ARR definitions in public SaaS filings, Abacum on CAC, margin and churn definitions, and Aleph on covenant EBITDA. Full links below.
Abacum’s illustrative example (a hypothetical company, not real data) shows one business producing ARR of $6.5M, $5.25M or $4.33M depending on the definition, and gross margin of 94%, 86% or 78%. Ordway’s review of public SaaS filings finds companies differ on services, currency policy, acquired ARR and contracted-but-not-started contracts. Compare two portcos on different definitions and you are ranking accounting choices, not performance.
For the benchmark ranges once the definitions are fixed, see good CAC payback, pipeline coverage and win rate.
Published PE data playbooks converge on roughly 90 days. One estimate puts the first assessment at one person and 60 to 80 hours. Treat the hours as a planning figure, not a guarantee.
Plan: JayOh synthesis of published 90-day playbooks (Crawford McMillan, Aleph). Day boundaries are a working template. Adjust for company count and system complexity.
Pick business-day deadlines and hold them. These are common practitioner timings, not a standard: a monthly financial package by business day 10 and a quarterly KPI package by business day 15 (Crawford McMillan), a flash in 3 to 10 business days and a full management pack in 10 to 20 (Aleph).
Dashed lines mark business day 10 and 15. Covenant compliance certificates are typically quarterly, often within 45 days (Aleph). Board packs go out 5 to 7 days before the meeting. The GTM scorecard row is JayOh’s recommendation: it rides the monthly package so GTM and finance numbers close together.
| Signal | Weak | Acceptable | Strong |
|---|---|---|---|
| Package lag after month end | 30+ days | 10–20 business days | Under 10 business days |
| KPIs on the dictionary, with an owner | Under half | Half to nearly all | All, reviewed quarterly |
| Revenue reconciled across systems | Unchecked | Within 5% | Within 1% |
| Customer count, CRM vs billing | Unchecked | Within 10% | Within 5% |
| Portcos on the standard template | Under half | Most, acquisitions lagging | All, new deals onboarded in one cycle |
Lag bands draw on Workiva’s reporting maturity model and Aleph’s pack timings. The 1% and 5% thresholds are from one published playbook; the other bands are JayOh working thresholds, not industry statistics.
Most GTM definition drift lives in CRM configuration: deal stages, close dates, close-lost reasons and amount history. Fix those fields at the source and the scorecard follows.
For Samsung Next, JayOh standardized RevOps across five portfolio companies and built the GTM infrastructure underneath. Marketing ROI rose 25% and sales-process efficiency 35%. For PE firms such as FTV, Norwest and PSG, the pattern is the same: one standard, then pods where the scorecard shows the weakest scores.
Run the maturity model across your portfolioWrite one KPI dictionary with a formula, inclusions, exclusions, period and owner for each metric. Map each portco’s CRM, billing and ERP fields to it, then report the same scorecard on the same business-day calendar. Definitions come before tooling.
Standardize KPI definitions, reporting cadence, data-quality thresholds and board-deck structure. Keep each company’s tech stack, industry-specific metrics, internal processes and local governance its own.
About 90 days: roughly 30 to define, 30 to map and align, and 30 to run two monthly cycles on the new standard before handing it to the portco CFO.
No. The standard is the definitions and the mapping. Companies on HubSpot, Salesforce or another CRM can all report the same scorecard if the stage, date and amount fields feed the same formulas.
Because the metric names are not standard. Public SaaS companies differ on whether ARR includes services, how currency is handled and whether signed-but-not-live contracts count. CAC varies by which costs are loaded and how spend is lagged.
A named person at fund level owns the dictionary and the quarterly review. The portco CFO owns delivery of the package, and the operating partner reviews the scorecard.
Give it a one-cycle onboarding path onto the standard and report its ARR on a separate line until it is mapped. New charts of accounts and close calendars are the usual blockers.
JayOh is a GTM systems engineering firm and HubSpot Platinum Partner, an Anthropic partner, working as an embedded growth pod since 2016. The Portfolio Scorecard runs the same 18-metric Diagnostic across your portfolio companies, gives you one comparable scorecard, and deploys pods where the scores are worst.
Run the maturity model across your portfolioRelated reading: GTM for operating partners, GTM in private equity, GTM KPIs for CROs, benchmarks database.
We engineer growth systems. JayOh builds the RevOps architecture, GTM execution and data infrastructure that turn messy revenue operations into predictable pipeline for B2B SaaS and PE-backed teams.
