Zuora Partners with FinancialForce.com, Intacct and Sage to Bring Finance into the Subscription Economy

New alliances to standardize integration between leading financials and Zuora subscription billing and commerce solutions. End Quote

(1888PressRelease) May 17, 2012 - Redwood City, CA: Enabling a Best of Breed Approach for the Subscription Economy.

Zuora, the subscription billing and commerce leader for the Subscription Economy, today announced a new set of alliances with industry leading financial management and accounting applications to address the unique finance and accounting needs of subscription businesses. FinancialForce.com, Intacct and Sage have all joined with Zuora to standardize how subscription revenue is treated and shared with existing financial management and accounting applications.

Over the last four years, Zuora has built the de-facto billing and commerce backbone for the Subscription Economy with customers ranging from high-growth startups like Box, Branchout, Docusign, Marketo, Splunk, and Zendesk to global enterprises like AAA, Dell, News International, Pearson, Tata Communications, Reed Business, and Qualcomm.

These new alliances will further provide Zuora's customers with the ability to extend the value of their existing systems - no matter which financial management and accounting applications they use -- and to seamlessly connect Zuora's subscription billing and commerce solutions

The Subscription Economy is Changing the Way Companies Operate

Subscription business models are expanding rapidly beyond the realm of software-as-a-service or publishing to communications, automotive, media in both new and traditional companies. Today, subscriptions are everywhere as cloud, social and mobile technologies are creating entirely new ways for businesses to connect and serve their customers with "subscribe" to recurring services rather than "buy" products, giving rise to the Subscription Economy.

This shift to the Subscription Economy is rapidly forcing a fundamental change in the way companies run their businesses, as the subscription business model is fundamentally different than traditional product-centric businesses. For example:

Pricing is different (e.g. multiple price plans, bundles, tiers, pay-as-you-go, vs. one-time pricing);
Billing is different (e.g. monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, annual and even custom billing periods vs. one-time billing); and
Commerce is different (e.g. ongoing relationship with add-ons, upgrades and renewals vs. one-time purchase).
But more than that, finance is different, and today's CFOs are struggling with how to manage the unique differences that the subscription business model brings to their business, specifically forecasting future revenues, separating one-time from recurring revenue, and calculating metrics like ARR, churn, and renewals rate.

As a result, finance departments and CFOs have discovered that they need a new subscription billing and commerce platform that handles finance in the Subscription Economy, and importantly, one that seamlessly integrates with their existing financial management and accounting applications.

Finance Leaders Team with Zuora to Bring Finance into the Subscription Economy

Intacct: "As one of the original SaaS financial applications companies, we understand the importance and complexity of managing a subscription business," said Robert Reid, CEO, Intacct. "Our alliance and this new framework enable joint customers to realize the true value of Zuora and Intacct together. This is a perfect example of how cloud computing makes it easier for companies to select integrated best-of-breed systems like Intacct and Zuora, instead of being forced into a suite of average products from one vendor."

Sage: "Sage serves millions of customers worldwide and in recent months we have seen a growing interest among these small and midsized businesses to offer their own products through subscription," said Himanshu Palsule, EVP Strategy, Sage North America. "Partnering with Zuora will enable us to help our customers gain the benefit of offering subscription services to their own customers with integration to Sage accounting or ERP systems in the back office."

FinancialForce.com: "Zuora's cloud applications are ideal for companies with sophisticated subscription processing needs and are perfect complements to FinancialForce's accounting, billing and media solutions," said Tom Brennan, vice president of product marketing at FinancialForce.com. Our combined solution is ideal for subscription centric businesses, especially those using Salesforce CRM. As always, we are delighted to offer our customers multiple applications to choose from as opposed to the vendor lock-in approaches practiced by traditional ERP suppliers."

Commentary on the News

Beagle Research: "With this announcement, Zuora is paving the way to define a common standard for industry leading financial applications to integrate with a world class subscription billing and commerce platform," Denis Pombriant of Beagle Research. "This ensures that any company can realize it's full potential in the Subscription Economy through a set of common standards, regardless of what financial application they use."

Zuora: "Zuora is working closely with some of the most innovative CFOs who recognize that the Subscription Economy represents a major shift in their business and how they measure success," said Shawn Price, President at Zuora. "By partnering with leaders in finance and accounting, we are building a bridge between the 20th and 21st century business models that finance leaders need to succeed in this new reality."

About Zuora, Inc.
Zuora is the global leader in subscription commerce and billing, helping companies in every industry transition to the Subscription Economy. Enterprise leaders and high-growth companies alike use Zuora's multi-tenant cloud platform to launch, scale, and monetize their subscription services. Built from the ground up by SaaS industry veterans from salesforce.com, PayPal, and Webex, Zuora services innovative customers like Informatica, Tata Communications, Box.net, Ning, GigaOm, Xplornet, Ustream and Reed Business Information. To learn more about Zuora, please visit www.zuora.com.

Media Contact:
Eileen Conway
Reidy Communications for Zuora
eileen ( @ ) reidycommunications dot com
(650) 245-9015

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