Blog · Board and management reporting
The commercial data pack a private equity owner expects from a newly acquired sales-led company in its first hundred days: customer concentration and cohort retention, revenue by segment reconciled to the ledger, share of wallet against the company's own norm, coverage and pipeline, pricing realisation, and the definitions behind each. Why each is asked, what the answer looks like from exports the company already has, and the two questions that most companies cannot answer on day one.
A private equity owner closes on a sales-led company and asks the commercial team for numbers the company has never produced. Most of them compute from the ledger and the customer master in the first month. This guide sets out the six the board asks for, why, what each looks like, and the two that decide the plan.
| # | Ask | Why the board wants it | Source | Ready by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Customer concentration, trended, with contracts | Dependency risk; covenant questions | Ledger, contract register | Week 2 |
| 2 | Retention by cohort, reconciled to the bridge | Is the base holding; which cohort is not | Ledger | Week 3 |
| 3 | Revenue by segment, summing to the ledger | Where the business actually is | Ledger, customer master | Week 2 |
| 4 | Share of wallet against the company's own norm | Is there growth in the base | Ledger, customer master, norms | Week 5 |
| 5 | Coverage and pipeline coverage per rep | Is the team working the book; is next quarter there | CRM export | Week 4, with a data quality score |
| 6 | Price realisation against list and agreements | The margin lever | Invoice lines, price list, agreements | Week 6 |
Concentration. Top ten share, count to half, trended four years, with the top ten's contract terms and contacts beside them. The board reads the trend and the dependency, not the level.
Retention by cohort. Net revenue retention per signing cohort, summing to the ARR or revenue bridge. The cohort that stalled is the finding.
Revenue by segment. Two or three master fields, thirty or more customers per cell, summing to the ledger. The segments the norms will be computed within.
Share of wallet. Per customer against the segment norm, with the wallet source stated. Rolled up: the value at norm across the base, which is the size of the base growth in the plan.
Coverage and pipeline. Per rep, with the data quality score beside each. Greyed where the CRM does not support the number.
Price realisation. Invoiced against list and agreed, per customer and rep, with the unagreed discount summed. Usually one to three percent of revenue.
| Question | Company's answer on day one | Answer from the exports, week six |
|---|---|---|
| How much growth is in the base? | "A lot; our customers love us" | Value at norm: $8.4m across 1,240 customers; 40% of it in 60 accounts |
| How much margin is in pricing? | "We are disciplined on price" | Unagreed discount: $1.9m, 2.3% of revenue; 60% from four reps |
Two numbers, from files that existed at close, and the value creation plan has a base growth figure and a pricing figure with names behind each.
every table sums to the ledger, and the board can trace any figure to it
An owner's first hundred days are a series of questions about whether the numbers can be trusted. Tables that reconcile end those questions.
Pack built from the company's existing reports. Different sources; nothing reconciles; the board stops believing.
Share of wallet skipped as too hard. The base growth assumption goes untested.
Coverage shown at full confidence on a bad CRM. Discovered in month four.
Definitions unstated. The board's coverage and the company's coverage are two things.
Mapped once, the ledger, the customer master, the CRM export and the price and contract files produce the six tables and their identities, and the pack repeats monthly. Covirage builds it from the exports as they are. The board reporting solution describes the setup, and the ten board metrics guide covers what the monthly pack becomes after the hundred days.
Because the value creation plan usually assumes growth from existing customers, and share of wallet against the company's own norm is the only measure that says whether that growth exists. A base at 80 percent of norm has room; one at norm needs new logos, and the plan is different.
Because unagreed discounts are the fastest margin lever an owner has, and most companies have never computed them. Invoice lines against the dated price list and the agreements produce the figure in a week, and it is usually larger than the diligence assumed.
It usually is. The ledger and the customer master carry concentration, retention, segments, share of wallet and pricing. Coverage and pipeline need the CRM, and the data quality score per rep says how much to believe them. The board is told which measures rest on which data.