Pipeline, quotes, invoices, cash — each with its own meaning.
GA Applications designs sales and finance dashboards that follow work from enquiry through pipeline, quotes, confirmed work, invoices and selected accounting measures. Tentative, contracted, billed and received values are kept visibly distinct, timing and assumptions are stated, and commercial teams get action queues without exposing detail they do not need.
Most commercial reporting pain is definition pain: 'sales' meaning four different things in one meeting. This direction draws hard, labelled lines between stages of commitment so every number has a defensible meaning.
Demonstration uses fictional accounts and values. Your build reads from your CRM and accounting system of record.
Commitment ladder — July window
Interface demonstration — fictional data-
1 · Tentative pipeline$286k · 19 oppspossibility, weighted nowhere · source: CRM · refreshed 06:00
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2 · Quotes issued (valid)$154k · 11 quotes3 expire within 7 days · validity assumption: 30d · source: quoting
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3 · Contracted, not invoiced$412k · 23 jobsdef v2.0 · excludes verbal acceptances · sources: CRM + accounting
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4 · Billed (invoices issued)$198k · 34 invoices7 overdue >30d ($41k) · terms assumption: 20th of month following
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5 · Received (cash)$167kbank-matched to 21 Jul · source: accounting system
Built for the moment someone asks "so how are sales?"
This direction serves owners, sales and commercial teams, and finance reviewers. Its decisions sound simple and are not: Do we have enough contracted work to hold hiring plans? Which quotes need a call this week before they expire? Is the collections problem dispute-driven or habit-driven? Each answer depends on which stage of commitment you mean — so this view never lets the stages blend. A pipeline possibility, a signed job, an issued invoice and cleared cash are four different facts supporting four different decisions.
The target operating outcome: commercial conversations where "sales this month" has exactly one meaning per context, expiry and ageing get worked as queues, and nobody re-keys CRM data into a finance spreadsheet to answer a basic question.
The commitment ladder and its assumptions
Five stages, five meanings
The ladder in the demonstration is the whole philosophy: each rung has its own value, count, source and ageing, and moving down a rung requires an event — a quote issued, a signature, an invoice, a bank match. Tentative pipeline is never added to contracted work, even with a probability weight, because weighted pipeline has a way of being quoted as fact by Friday. Where a business genuinely needs a forecast, it is shown as a separate, clearly labelled measure with its method stated — assumption, not observation.
Timing and assumptions, in the open
Every time-dependent figure carries its assumption: quote validity period, payment terms, month-end close status. "Billed $198k" means invoices issued under 20th-of-month-following terms, and it says so. When the two systems disagree — a quote revised after invoicing, a credit note not yet applied — the variance is surfaced with both values labelled rather than averaged into a fiction.
Action queues without oversharing
Commercial action lives in queues: quotes expiring within 7 days with their owner, invoices crossing 30 days with dispute flags, accepted quotes not yet converted to jobs. A salesperson sees their own ladder and queues; the finance reviewer sees billed and received detail; the owner sees the whole ladder. Same definitions, role-appropriate resolution.
Invoice ageing — action queue
Interface demonstration — fictional dataWhere is billed money stuck, and why?
Open invoices by days past due, with dispute flags. Source: accounting system, refreshed 06:00. Terms assumption: 20th of month following. Fictional data.
Same data as a table
| Bucket | Value (NZD) | Invoices | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Current (not yet due) | $96k | 18 | Routine |
| 1–30 days past due | $52k | 9 | Follow-ups sent |
| 31–60 days past due | $29k | 5 | 1 dispute flagged — variation claim |
| >60 days past due | $12k | 2 | Named review assigned to Finance |
Definitions this view typically carries
Tentative pipeline value
Sum of open opportunities at face value. No probability weighting, no inclusion in any total with later stages. A possibility, reported as one.
Contracted, not invoiced
Value of contractually confirmed work not yet invoiced. Verbal acceptances excluded; expired quotes excluded; variations included only when signed.
Days sales outstanding (selected)
Average days from invoice issue to bank match for the trailing 90 days, computed on settled invoices only. Open invoices age separately in the queue.
Quote expiry exposure
Value of valid quotes expiring within the agreed horizon (default 7 days) with no recorded follow-up in the last 5 working days.
Two systems of record, one reconciliation
Systems of record
- CRM / quoting: pipeline, quotes, owners
- Accounting: invoices, credit notes, receipts
Governed layer
- Stage definitions v2.0 with event gates
- Assumption labels: terms, validity, close status
- CRM↔accounting reconciliation, 1% tolerance
- Refresh: 06:00 daily + intraday where available
Views
- Salesperson: own ladder & queues
- Finance: billed/received & ageing
- Owner: full ladder + variances
- Executive indicator set (upstream)
Failure is priced into the design. If the accounting feed misses its refresh, billed and received figures carry a stale treatment and the reconciliation badge drops to unknown — the ladder never presents yesterday's cash as today's. If a quote's stage in the CRM conflicts with an invoice in accounting, the record is quarantined into a variance list for a human, not force-matched. Month-end close is a first-class state: figures for an unclosed period are provisional by definition. And the view never pretends to be your statutory accounts — formal financial reporting stays with your accountant and accounting system; this ladder reconciles to those sources rather than competing with them.
What we need from you, and how delivery runs
Inputs
- Read access to CRM/quoting and accounting systems, subject to interface review
- Your stage definitions — or the arguments about them, which we will settle in writing
- Terms, validity and close assumptions as your business actually runs them
- Access rules: who sees margin, who sees client-level detail, who sees their own book only
Delivery & acceptance
- Decision workshop: which commercial decisions, which stages, which queues
- Source profile and definition sign-off with commercial and finance owners
- Prototype, then CRM↔accounting reconciliation across two or more periods
- Pilot through one full month-end close
- Acceptance: stages never blend; assumptions labelled on every time-dependent figure; variance list works; role-based visibility verified; provisional periods visibly provisional; table equivalents pass
Right fit
- Pipeline lives in a CRM and money lives in an accounting system
- "Sales" currently means different things in different meetings
- Quote expiry and invoice ageing are worked from memory or inbox
Wrong fit
- You want a weighted-pipeline forecast presented as committed revenue
- You want statutory or tax reporting automated (that stays with your accountant)
- There is no CRM or quoting discipline yet — fix capture first, dashboard second
Related directions and services
Frequently asked questions
Which systems does this connect to?
Typically your CRM or quoting tool for pipeline and your accounting system for invoices and receipts, subject to interface review. Each measure names its system of record, and where the two systems disagree — a quote edited after invoicing, for example — the difference is surfaced, not averaged away.
Why keep tentative, contracted, billed and received separate?
Because decisions made on blended numbers are how businesses overcommit. A tentative pipeline is a possibility, contracted work is a promise, billed is a claim and received is cash. Each supports different decisions, so each gets its own defined measure, ageing and owner.
Can sales staff see finance detail, or vice versa?
Only what their role requires. A salesperson might see their own pipeline and quote ageing without cost or margin; a finance reviewer sees billed and received detail without private notes. Access boundaries are agreed in scoping and verified during acceptance testing.
How are timing assumptions shown?
Any measure that depends on time — expected close dates, payment terms, quote validity — displays the assumption next to the value. A forecast built on 30-day terms is labelled as such, so a viewer never mistakes an assumption for an observed fact.
Will this replace our accountant's reports?
No. The dashboard is an operational view for day-to-day commercial decisions. Statutory accounts, tax and formal financial reporting remain with your accountant and accounting system; the dashboard reconciles to those sources rather than competing with them.
When someone says 'sales this month', which number do they mean?
Tell us where the argument usually starts — pipeline value, quoted value or invoiced value — and we will scope a view where each stage of commitment is defined, sourced and aged, piloted against your current reports.