Hiring Plan: Ratio Driven per Expected 3-Month Forward Revenue (Excel XLSX)

Forecasting expected hires / headcounts in a SaaS company can be like flying blind if you have no basis for how people get added in various departments of your company. This template is a high level way to make some sort of sense out of expectations and the costs therein.

The model comes in the form of an Excel template and a Google sheet template (link in the ‘Assumptions' tab of the Excel doc)

Here is how the logic works here:

•  Define recurring revenue per month and the annual percentage growth rate (this will break down into the monthly growth) If you have your own revenue forecast, that is fine and just plug it into the monthly revenue row.
•  Define the forward three month revenue amount that you want to base new hires on. For example, you can enter $600,000 and then the ratios will be based on that.
•  Define ratios for Account Executives (AEs, SDRs, Customer Service Reps) that are needed per the forward 3 month revenue. This allows the user to define the following: how many AEs are needed per $x of expected 3-month leading revenue? If it is 1.5, that means for every $600,000, add 1.5 AEs. The $600,000 and 1.5 are configurable to any number.
•  Define ratios of hirers for other departments in the same way.

Slots were built for 3 R&D types as well as 3 miscellaneous types. Based on these assumptions a few reports will display. The first is a monthly summary that shows expected revenues, expected salaries and headcounts based on the defined ratios.

The total percentage of revenue they equal will also display. A final report tab shows visualizations of headcounts / revenues / salary costs and some combo overlays to make it really clear what is happening based on the assumptions.

In general, this tool is a good way to estimate how many new hires there should be based on revenue growth. It is a way to get some control over this and have some boundaries / budgets to what is happening in a real situation.

Note, some of the visuals are different on the Google Sheet version.