This figure — where does it come from?
A formula without a source or a date is not defended, it is believed.
CalcDefensible figures
Formulas, units, sources and assumptions
The figure that carries your decision sits in a spreadsheet nobody has checked.
- ROI
- Break-even
- Units & assumptions
- Forecasts
It was built quickly, by someone competent, for a specific meeting. Since then, a cell has been overwritten with a hard-coded value, two tabs use different units, and the person who built it has moved on. The figure keeps circulating. Nobody knows how to redo it.
Calc makes the calculation readable again: the formula, the inputs, their units, their sources and the assumptions stay visible. A third party can retrace the path without you — an investor, a banker, a statutory auditor, or simply your successor.
LEADERSHIP QUESTION
Are the figures right, and can they be checked?
WHAT CALC LETS YOU VERIFY
Five questions a spreadsheet cannot document.
Are the units consistent?
Thousands of euros against euros, before tax against after tax, monthly against annual: that is where most costly errors come from, and they do not show on screen.
What really moves the result?
Out of ten assumptions, two count. The other eight fill the meetings.
Are we comparing like with like?
Two returns on investment calculated by two methods cannot be ranked against each other.
What happens when the file’s author is gone?
That is when you discover what the calculation assumed.
WORKING LOOP
Choose the method, document, calculate, test, keep.
The choice of method is the most neglected point. Changing method between two exercises produces a gap that everyone reads as performance.
- 01Set the economic question
- 02Choose the method, and keep it
- 03Document the inputs: value, unit, source, date, author
- 04Calculate, with the formula readable next to the result
- 05Test the levers
- 06Attach the calculation to the file
- 07Reuse the same method the following year
THE CALCULATION SHEET
What accompanies the result.
A result without its sheet is not a result: it is an assertion.
- The economic question — what you want to know, for which decision
- The method retained — and its known limits
- The inputs — value, unit, source, date, person who supplied it
- The formula — visible, not buried in a cell
- The result — with its unit and horizon
- The levers — the inputs that move the output most
- The assumptions — what is estimated for lack of measurement
- The version — what the calculation gave before, and why it changed
CONCRETE EXAMPLE
That extra salesperson — when does the hire pay for itself?
A company hesitates over hiring a salesperson. The calculation documents the annual fully loaded cost, the ramp-up time, the average margin per deal and the observed conversion rate — each with its source and unit.
The result is not a yes or a no: break-even is reached in month fourteen if ramp-up takes six months, in month twenty-two if it takes nine. The decisive lever is therefore not the salary but the ramp-up time — which shifts the decision towards supporting the hire rather than its cost.
Illustrative case. The calculation informs the decision; it does not make it.
CALC AND THE OTHER WORKSPACES
The figure travels, and so does its method.
Atlas keeps the calculations attached to the file, with their versions. Grid relies on quantified criteria to compare options. Mix calculates its price, volume and margin scenarios with its own deterministic engine; Calc makes the one-off calculations around them auditable. Map quantifies the cost of an interruption. Pilot consolidates these elements into the trajectory presented to a funder.
That continuity is what gives the word auditable its meaning: the person contesting a figure in the trajectory can trace it back to the input, its unit and its source, without leaving the file.
HOW TO GET IT
Calc is the verification base, not an option.
Self-service
Annual licence
Calc is included in the licence: it is the workspace a finance team adopts first, often before the others.
Scoped engagement
Fixed fee
The calculations produced during the engagement stay documented in Calc, with their sources. You can redo them, contest them and update them without us.
Guided review
Subscription
We update the inputs and flag the calculations whose assumptions have aged.
All three modes exist for every workspace. The detail of each pricing model is on the Offer page.
See the three access modes in detailWHO PRODUCES WHAT
The values come from you, the method is discussed.
| Deliverable | Produced by |
|---|---|
| Documented methods and formulas | The tool |
| Unit consistency check | The tool |
| Calculation and lever analysis | The tool |
| Documented exports | The tool |
| Values, sources and dates | Your teams, entered in Calc |
| Choice of method | Workshop run by inNOVAtio |
| What you retain from the result | Your decision, recorded in the file |
An automatic unit check prevents the most costly and least visible error.
WHAT CALC DOES NOT DO
A correct calculation on wrong assumptions is still wrong.
Calc ensures that the result follows from the inputs, that the units are consistent and that the method is kept. It does not ensure that your assumptions match reality. That is why each sheet separates what is measured from what is estimated.
Auditable does not mean audited. We make the calculation verifiable by a third party; we do not certify it. A statutory auditor or an auditor remains a statutory auditor or an auditor — Calc saves them time, it does not replace them.
Calc works within the perimeter of its documented methods — more than forty, from return on investment to break-even, from forecasting to growth. It is not a general-purpose spreadsheet: you do not rebuild just any model in it. If your calculation is not among them, say so in the first conversation: the answer is yes or no, not maybe.
Calc certifies nothing. It makes the calculation verifiable by a third party, including your successor.
Who, in your company, could redo the calculation that carries the next decision?
A first thirty-minute conversation, with the calculation you use today.