Prior-Quarter Total Customers
The total active customer-logo count at the END of the prior reporting period — the opening balance for the current period's logo bridge. The board reads this so the bespoke customers card can show beginning vs. ending logos and the net change without having to re-derive the opening balance from `total_customers − new + churned`. Common pitfall: silently re-stating the prior total after a definitional change to "customer" — hold the counting unit constant or footnote the restatement. — Customers KPI, I'mBoard-authored (editorial tier).
I'mBoard-authored (editorial tier)
No public third-party standard anchors this KPI yet, so I'mBoard authors and maintains the definition — transparently labeled as editorial tier. See the ontology methodology for the published vs editorial tier system and the back-attribution workstream.
Rogue ID: customers.prior_quarter_total_customers
Type: Number
Domain: Customers
Definition
The total active customer-logo count at the END of the prior reporting period — the opening balance for the current period's logo bridge. The board reads this so the bespoke customers card can show beginning vs. ending logos and the net change without having to re-derive the opening balance from total_customers − new + churned. Common pitfall: silently re-stating the prior total after a definitional change to "customer" — hold the counting unit constant or footnote the restatement.
Formula
Active paying customer logos at the prior period close. Serves as the opening balance: prior_quarter_total_customers + new_customers_added − customers_churned = total_customers.Why it matters
Gives the board the explicit beginning-of-period logo balance so the logo bridge reconciles without inference.
How to interpret
When this plus net change does not equal customers.total_customers, a definitional change or mid-period restatement happened — surface it rather than absorbing it silently.
Calculation policy
How an AI agent should compute this KPI from messy company data. Free-text rules consumed at reasoning time — not a deterministic DSL. The most common ways to get this wrong are listed under Common miscomputations.
Inclusion rules
- The total active paying customer-logo count at the prior period's CLOSE — the opening balance for the current period's logo bridge.
- Same "active = live paid sub on the reporting date; not trial, not cancelled, not $0" rule as
customers.total_customers. - Same counting unit (parent vs. account vs. seat) as the current total.
Exclusion rules
- Any current-period activity — this is strictly the prior-close snapshot.
- Trials, $0, and cancelled logos at the prior close (same exclusions as
total_customers). - A prior count taken under a different "customer" definition than the current one (re-state or footnote).
Required inputs
- The prior period's reported active-logo count.
- Confirmation the counting unit / "customer" definition matches the current period.
Data-source priority
- The prior period's board-reported total-customer count.
- Re-derive from the prior-close subscription ledger ONLY if no reported value exists.
Edge cases
- As-of semantics: the prior reporting-period CLOSE, which is also the current period's opening balance.
- A silent restatement after a "customer" redefinition breaks the bridge — hold the unit constant or footnote it.
- An account merger between the prior close and now is reflected via the bridge, not by editing the opening balance.
Validation checks
prior_quarter_total_customers + new_customers_added − customers_churned = total_customers— when it does not reconcile, a definitional change or restatement happened; surface it.- Non-negative integer.
- Equals the prior period's reported
total_customersunder an unchanged definition.
Common miscomputations
- Silently re-stating the prior total after a "customer" redefinition instead of footnoting it.
- Using current total minus net change as a circular proxy instead of the actual prior-close count.
- Counting trials / $0 in the prior count but not the current (or vice versa) — breaks the bridge.
Related KPIs
customers.total_customerscustomers.new_customers_addedcustomers.customers_churned
Source
I'mBoard editorial — authored and maintained by I'mBoard, first published 2026-04-01. No third-party standard is cited for this KPI; when one emerges, the definition is back-attributed and promoted to the published tier (a minor version bump). Read the ontology methodology for the published vs editorial tier system, attribution rules, and dispute process.
Stage relevance
| Company stage | Priority |
|---|---|
| Pre-Seed | Core |
| Seed | Core |
| Series A | Core |
| Series B | Core |
| Series C+ | Core |
| Public | Core |
Suggested for stages: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, Series B, Series C+, Public.
Default owning functions
- Sales
Machine-readable
- This KPI as JSON:
/api/ontology/customers/prior_quarter_total_customers.json - All Customers KPIs:
/api/ontology/customers.json - Full catalog:
/api/ontology/index.json
Prior-Quarter NRR
Net Revenue Retention reported in the PRIOR period — the comparison anchor for the current `customers.net_revenue_retention`. The board reads the two together to render the NRR trend on the bespoke customers retention grid. Per the SMSB NRR cohort definition, both periods must use the same closed-start-cohort methodology for the delta to be meaningful. Common pitfall: comparing an NRR computed on a different cohort window across the two periods. — Customers KPI, I'mBoard-authored (editorial tier).
Retention Reporting Method
Whether the company TRACKS cohort retention (NRR/GRR) or does NOT yet track it — the explicit signal the bespoke customers retention grid reads to choose between the tracked 4-card retention view and the not-tracked empty state. Value is `tracked` or `not_tracked`. Without this canonical field the card has to INFER "tracked" and can never honestly render the not-tracked state. Common pitfall: leaving NRR/GRR blank to mean "not tracked" — that is ambiguous with "tracked but zero"; this explicit enum removes the ambiguity. — Customers KPI, I'mBoard-authored (editorial tier).