It doesn't help when the company previously stated that ACV is to be known as ARR (or Annual Recurring Revenue).
The company's ACV explanation and calculations can be found in this ASX announcement:
3DP Response to ASX Aware Query (10/02/2021)https://announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20210210/pdf/44sjxd28qzrxxp.pdf[ As previously disclosed,
ACV (also known as ARR, or Annual Recurring Revenue) represents the US$ total (in Pointerra’s case) of customers that are paying or have committed to pay for (or subscribe for) the use of Pointerra’s cloud platform (DPaaS/DaaS/AaaS) for 3D data, expressed as an annualised amount at any given point in time.
Because SaaS businesses like Pointerra have a no lock-in/commitment commercial model (ie the customer can cancel at any time),
ACV/ARR for SaaS businesses is expressed as the annualised total of all customers (regardless of their payment cycle/frequency) at any point in time.
If a customer stops paying or cancels their account then their contribution to ACV is removed. Similarly, if a customer grows/reduces their spend there is a similar upward impact on ACV.
Some examples may help to illustrate this approach:
- A small customer paying $1,000 pcm contributes $12,000 to ACV.
- A larger customer who has decided to pay $120,000 annually in advance contributes $120,000 to ACV.
- A customer who decides to pay $6,000 quarterly contributes $24,000 to ACV.
- A customer who is paying $30,000 a month but who ups their spend for a fixed period of time (say an additional $20,000 pcm) for a few months but does not commit to a higher spend stays at an ACV contribution of $360,000 pa (12 x $30,000).
- A customer paying $2,000 pcm that decides to reduce their spend on the platform to $1,000 pcm changes in the ACV calculation from $24,000 to $12,000.
When ACV is totalled/measured from time to time, the annualised sum of all customers (at their current subscription levels) generates the total ACV for the company.
Pointerra commenced reporting ACV to the market on 31 January 2019 (in the Company’s December 2018 Quarter Activities and Cashflow Report) and has updated the market on a regular basis (at least quarterly) on movements in ACV since this time.
Because each customer has different procurement, onboarding, invoicing and payment requirements following their decision to commit to Pointerra’s platform, the Company has previously advised the market that the timing of invoicing, revenue recognition and cash receipts from each new customer will vary.
As previously advised, both in aggregate and over time, the Company expects that ACV, invoicing, revenue recognition and cash receipts from customers will begin to align as the customer base continues to grow and mature. ]
Ian's been asked to explain the disconnect between ACV and cash flow before (at 24:40):
Pointerra Webinar 27 March 2020https://youtu.be/AkIq928uS3o?feature=shared&t=1480
(20min delay)
