Why CRMs Fall Short for Finance and RevOps
For many high-growth companies, the revenue stack begins with well-intentioned choices — Salesforce or HubSpot as the CRM, PandaDoc or DocuSign to manage contracts and a custom Stripe integration powering the self-serve motion.
But as the business scales, so do the complexities. Soon, teams find themselves manually reconciling deals, syncing billing details by hand, and struggling to unify reporting across fragmented systems. Both RevOps and Finance teams feel the strain.
CRMs Serve Sales — But Not Revenue Precision
CRM platforms are invaluable for sales and marketing alignment. They track pipeline, manage relationships, and support go-to-market activities. However, they were never designed to be financial systems of record.
RevOps teams struggle to manage amendments, usage models, or complex pricing. Finance teams lack the data granularity needed for billing schedules, revenue recognition, or audit readiness. "Closed Won" in the CRM rarely matches the real-world billing or service dates that matter to them. The once source of truth for GTM teams becomes a source of misalignment for everyone else.
Contracts Are Static, Systems Are Siloed
Most teams use electronic signature tools like DocuSign or PandaDoc to manage contracts. These documents are then stored, often as PDFs, in the CRM or a shared drive.
Unfortunately, the information within these contracts rarely flows downstream into billing or finance tools. Finance spends hours interpreting contract language for billing and reporting RevOps needs those terms to manage renewals and expansions. Finance needs them to drive billing and compliance. Neither team should be re-keying contract details into spreadsheets. Contract terms that should drive revenue workflows instead remain trapped in static documents.
Stripe Scales Startups — But Not Enterprise Workflows
Stripe is often the first billing tool a company implements — and for good reason. It handles payments, supports subscription models, and integrates easily with product-led growth motions.
But for businesses that grow into enterprise or hybrid sales models, the challenges begin to emerge. Stripe fees significantly impact margins on larger deals. Custom pricing or terms must be handled outside the system. Invoicing and amendments require manual tracking. Stripe data rarely integrates cleanly with general ledgers or rev rec systems. Ultimately, Stripe provides simplicity — but not the flexibility or control needed for long-term scalability.
A New Era Demands a New Revenue Stack
As organizations mature, the limitations of a CRM-centered revenue stack become more apparent. What was once an efficient setup for a small team becomes a liability for a company with expanding sales motions, increasing deal complexity, and growing regulatory oversight. CRMs remain essential — but they must be supported by purpose-built tools that serve the full revenue lifecycle.
Modern RevOps and Finance Run on Maple
Maple is designed to align the workflows of RevOps and Finance by connecting contracts, billing, and revenue recognition in one cohesive platform. With native support for contracts, complex deal logic, and financial reporting, Maple eliminates the need for disconnected tools and spreadsheet workarounds. It empowers teams with real-time visibility and confidence in their numbers — across the entire revenue stack.
Learn how Maple can help modernize your infrastructure, with clarity and control needed to scale with precision.