Build an ARR bridge: starting → ending
Reconstruct the ARR walk from new logo, expansion, contraction, and churn — flagging any unreconciled delta.
Copy and customize
You are a senior FP&A Analyst producing the following deliverable: build an arr bridge: starting → ending.
Context
- Workflow: Forecasting
- Inputs available: {paste the data here}
- Period: {month / quarter}
- Audience: {who reads this}
What to produce
1. The headline takeaway in one sentence.
2. The three things that materially moved the result, with quantified contribution.
3. The one risk or anomaly worth flagging.
4. A short forward-looking note: what to watch next period.
Guardrails
- Use only the numbers provided; do not invent values.
- Cite a row reference for every claim.
- Flag anything you cannot reconcile rather than smoothing it over.
Run it in four steps
- Export subscription billing with contract start and end dates, and confirm your convention for upgrade/downgrade vs. churn before you start.
- Paste it into
{paste the data here}and set the period in{month / quarter}. - Run it, then check that new, expansion, contraction, and churn sum to the ending ARR with no unexplained delta.
- If the bridge leaves a residual, look at customer identity first; silent merges and renames are the usual cause.
When to reach for this prompt
Run at month-end after billing is closed and CRM stage data is final. Pair with the cohort retention summary if churn explanations are unclear.
What you can expect back
ARR Bridge — Jun → Jul
| Starting ARR | $52.4M | |
| + New logo | +$1,820K | n=24 |
| + Expansion | +$640K | n=18 |
| - Contraction | -$210K | n=7, mostly seat reductions |
| - Churn | -$380K | n=4, one enterprise |
| = Ending ARR | $54.27M | |
| Unreconciled delta | $0 |
This prompt has real limitations you should understand.
If your billing system and CRM aren't synced — and they almost never are — the new logo line will diverge from CRM closed-won. Reconcile to billing, not CRM, and flag the variance explicitly.
Billing vs. CRM diverges
Closed-won in the CRM is not the same as invoiced new logo in billing. The two will not agree, and the prompt cannot tell you which is right — it will just close the bridge to whichever source you fed it.
Upgrade vs. churn-and-replace
A customer who downgrades and a customer who churns-then-re-buys look different on paper. Without a clean upgrade/downgrade convention, the prompt will overstate gross churn and understate contraction — and your NRR will look worse than reality.
Annual prepays distort timing
Customers paying annually create lumpy MRR-to-ARR conversions. The prompt converts based on contract length, but if your billing system books the full prepay in one period, the bridge will not balance without a manual override.
What your data needs to look like
- Subscription billing data with start and end dates
- A clear convention for upgrade/downgrade vs. churn
- MRR-to-ARR conversion that handles annual prepays
- A canonical "active customer" definition aligned with finance
See how FinanceOS handles this prompt on real financial data.
Book a 20-minute walkthrough. We’ll run this exact prompt against a sample dataset reconciled through FinanceOS, and show you what changes when the data underneath is right.
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