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Blog · Territory, capacity and quota planning

The one-page account plan, built from computed measures rather than memory

What an account plan looks like when every line on it is computed from the ledger, the CRM and the norm: the account's share and gap by product, its trend, its contact recency, its tier and cadence, its concentration in the rep's book, and the three actions that follow. Why it is produced for every account rather than written for twenty, and how the rep's judgement is added on top rather than typed in underneath.

The short answerA one-page account plan has seven computed lines: revenue and trend, share of wallet against the norm, the product lines missing that similar accounts hold, contact recency against the tier's cadence, dormancy state, the account's share of the rep's book, and open pipeline with slip count. From those, three actions follow by rule: the largest gap product, the overdue touch, and the deal that has slipped. The rep adds judgement in a box at the bottom. Produced for every account monthly, not written for twenty annually.

An account plan written in January describes the account as it was in December and is not opened again until the review. The same seven measures computed every month from the ledger, the CRM and the norm describe the account as it is, for every account, and the rep's judgement goes on top. This guide sets out the one page, the three actions that follow by rule, and the box the rep owns.

The seven computed lines

Line Measure Source
1 Revenue, trailing twelve months, and trend against the prior twelve Ledger
2 Share of wallet against the segment norm, with the wallet method Ledger, customer master, norms
3 Product lines missing that similar accounts hold, valued Ledger, product list, norms
4 Days since last qualifying touch against the tier's cadence Activities, tiers
5 Dormancy state against the account's own cadence Ledger
6 Share of the rep's book, and rank Ledger, assignments
7 Open pipeline, by stage, with slip count Pipeline snapshots

The three actions, by rule

Action Rule
Sell The largest valued gap on line 3, with the norm behind it
Touch If line 4 exceeds the cadence, the overdue touch, with days
Move The deal on line 7 with the highest slip count, with its history

Each action names a thing. None is "grow the account".

A worked page

Account 4471, rep R-04, tier 2, segment mid manufacturers.

Line Value Reading
Revenue $180,000, down 8% Falling
Share of wallet 25% against norm 62%, wallet by norm method $430,000 at norm
Missing lines B ($52,000, bought and stopped), C ($30,000), E ($14,000) Line B first
Last touch 71 days; cadence 45 Overdue by 26 days
Dormancy Active; cadence 30 days; last order 19 days ago
Share of rep's book 4%, rank 9 of 62
Pipeline 1 deal, $60,000, proposal, slipped twice At risk

Actions. Sell line B, which the account bought until last year, at $52,000. Touch: overdue 26 days. Move: the $60,000 proposal has slipped twice and is at the team's 16 percent close rate for that count.

Judgement, R-04, 12 Sep. New procurement lead since July; previous contact left. Line B was dropped over a delivery issue in Q4; resolved, not communicated.

Rolled up

Per rep: accounts with a sell action, a touch action, a move action, and the value in each. The rep's month is the sum of the pages, and the manager's one-to-one is the roll-up.

Where it goes wrong

Twenty plans, written. The fortieth account has none.

Judgement typed over numbers. The plan says 40 percent share because the rep believes it.

Actions as aspirations. "Deepen the relationship" is not an action.

Refreshed annually. Line 1 is wrong by February.

Every month, every account

Mapped once, the ledger, the CRM exports, the norms and the pipeline snapshots produce the seven lines and the three actions for every account every month, with the rep's box carried forward. Covirage builds this from the exports as they are. The sales intelligence solution describes the setup, and the account tiering guide covers the tier and cadence that line 4 measures against.

Questions people ask

Does this replace the strategic account plan?

It replaces the part of it that was typed from memory and out of date by the second month. The strategic narrative, the relationship map and the executive sponsor still belong to the rep, in the judgement box, and they sit on top of numbers that refresh.

Why every account?

Because the twenty accounts that get a written plan are the twenty everyone already knows about. The account that matters this month is often the fortieth, and it has a computed plan too. The rep opens the ones the movements page points at.

What is in the judgement box?

Anything the numbers cannot know: a reorganisation at the customer, a competitor's contract end, a relationship at risk. Dated, attributed, short. It is read beside the computed lines, and it never overwrites them.