Fixing the Active Customer Problem When Finance and the Business Don’t Agree
If you’ve ever asked, “How many active customers do we actually have?” and received three different answers, you already know the pain of misaligned definitions. At this company, Finance and the U.S. business weren’t just a little out of sync. They were operating with entirely different models, different assumptions, and no shared milestones.
Invoices were wrong, contractors were paid for customers who weren’t live, and leadership had no reliable customer count. My job sounded simple: determine how many customers were active. In reality, the system made that nearly impossible.
Let’s dig in.
The Context: Two Countries, Two Models, Zero Shared Definition
When I arrived, the U.S. team was operating in a pre-revenue environment, focused on market share and speed. The Australian finance team was running under an e-commerce operational model with different regulations and workflows.
Both groups talked about “active customers,” but each meant something different. Without a shared definition or consistent documentation, the CRM couldn’t serve as a source of truth.
The workflow gaps were clear:
- No standardized lifecycle stages
- No required fields
- No reliable onboarding tracking
- No process alignment between Sales, Onboarding, Compliance, Operations, and Finance
With no common checkpoints, “active” was subjective—and reporting became guesswork.
The Scenarios Where Customer Counts Go Wrong
Scenario 1: Each team invents its own definition
Teams filled gaps however they could. Sales viewed “active” as prospects who completed onboarding steps. Finance defined it based on project management tools and contractor workflows. None of these definitions matched.
Signs this scenario is happening:
- Every department gives a different customer count
- Finance disputes Sales data
- Documentation varies wildly across records
- Leadership can’t get a straight answer during planning cycles
Scenario 2: The CRM can’t reflect reality
Because fields weren’t required and lifecycle stages didn’t exist, the CRM held more noise than signal. Even well-intentioned teams couldn’t document consistently.
Signs your CRM is in this state:
- Records show missing or contradictory onboarding data
- Status fields don’t map to operational milestones
- Manual review is the only way to confirm a customer’s state
Scenario 3: The business outgrew its definition but never replaced it
The medical regulatory differences between countries added complexity. Each region evolved independently, and without shared milestones, terms lost meaning.
Signs this is happening:
- Teams disagree not only on counts, but on what “active” even means
- Finance relies on tools outside the CRM
- No one can identify the moment a customer becomes “live”
How I rebuilt the system using milestones
Step 1: Establish a reliable baseline
Before fixing anything, I manually audited every single customer record. This was the only way to untangle conflicting documentation and confirm who was actually active. The audit gave us a number Finance could finally trust.
Step 2: Define universal milestones
I aligned the teams around shared, objective checkpoints in the customer journey—milestones that applied regardless of country, business model, or regulatory constraints. Examples included:
- Onboarding completed
- Required documents submitted
- Customer ready for service
These milestones became the backbone of the entire solution.
Step 3: Build the structure inside the CRM
I translated those milestones into concrete lifecycle stages and a simple, milestone-based pipeline that any stakeholder could understand. This replaced guesswork with clean, visible progression.
Step 4: Standardize documentation
Working with Sales and Onboarding, I created clear rules for:
- Which fields must be completed
- When those fields are required
- How onboarding progression must be documented
This eliminated inconsistent recordkeeping and forced alignment between teams.
Step 5: Train and reinforce
I trained every stakeholder group, explained why milestones mattered, and provided SOPs to enforce consistent behavior even with the outdated system we had.
Example:
Finance no longer needed to review external tools or interpret vague notes. They could view a CRM milestone and know, with confidence, whether a customer was billable.
When You Don’t Have Clean Data or Cross-Team Alignment
You can’t fix this type of problem by adding automation or enforcing validation rules. When definitions differ by region or team, the CRM becomes a reflection of misalignment—not the cause of it.
In environments like this:
- Manual auditing is often unavoidable
- You must build alignment before you build technology
- Milestones provide clarity when teams can’t agree on processes
- Data hygiene only improves when documentation becomes universal
When stakeholders see the CRM as “someone else’s system,” milestone alignment becomes the entry point to shared ownership.
This Isn’t a Data Problem—It’s a Definition Problem
The biggest barrier wasn’t technology. It was the absence of shared language. Once the company aligned around a single definition of “active customer,” everything else fell into place:
- Finance gained an accurate, trusted customer list
- Onboarding understood what needed to be logged
- Sales knew exactly when a customer became billable
- Leadership could finally interpret customer counts reliably
A stable customer count isn’t created by automation. It’s created by definitions that every team understands, documents, and follows.
A system can only be as accurate as the milestones beneath it.