Blog · Board and management reporting
A structure for a sales team's quarterly business review in which every number comes from a computed table: the quarter's revenue against plan with the bridge, coverage and share of wallet per rep against last quarter, the base's retention and dormancy, the pipeline for next quarter against the needed multiple, the three commitments per rep with a measure and a threshold, and the review of last quarter's commitments against what the tables now say.
A quarterly business review is usually forty slides built the night before, with numbers that disagree between slide nine and slide twenty, and commitments that nobody checks next quarter. Six computed tables replace the slides, and the commitments become checkable. This guide sets out the six sections, the commitments, and the review of them.
| # | Section | Table | Against |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Revenue against plan | Revenue by rep and region, reconciled to the ledger; bridge from last QBR's forecast | Plan; the forecast |
| 2 | Coverage and share | Coverage at cadence and share of wallet vs norm, per rep | Last quarter |
| 3 | The base | Retention, dormant run rate, churned run rate, by rep | Last quarter |
| 4 | Next quarter's pipeline | Pipeline by stage per rep against the needed multiple; slip counts | Needed multiple |
| 5 | Commitments | Three per rep: measure, threshold, date | The tables that will show them |
| 6 | Last quarter's commitments | Each read against the table now | Then versus now |
| Last QBR's forecast | $4.6m |
|---|---|
| Committed deals closed | +$3.1m |
| Committed deals slipped to next quarter | −$0.9m, 7 deals |
| Committed deals lost | −$0.6m, 4 deals |
| Uncommitted deals closed | +$0.8m |
| Actual | $4.4m |
Eleven deals explain the miss. The next forecast's calibration is in this table.
| Rep | Coverage now | Last QBR | Share vs norm now | Last QBR | Movement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R-04 | 53% | 61% | 0.7 | 0.8 | Both down |
| R-11 | 86% | 84% | 0.9 | 0.9 | Flat |
| R-17 | 94% | 90% | 1.1 | 1.0 | Up |
| Rep | Commitment | Measure | From | To | By | Table |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R-04 | Cover tier one | Tier one coverage | 44% | 80% | Week 8 | Coverage, tier split |
| R-04 | Recover line B at account 4471 | Line B revenue | $0 | $12,000 | Quarter end | Whitespace grid |
| R-04 | Clear slipped deals | Deals slipped 3+ | 6 | 0 | Week 4 | Slip count list |
Every commitment names a table that will show whether it happened.
| Rep | Commitment | Target | Now | Met |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| R-04 | Tier one coverage to 80% | 80% | 44% | No |
| R-11 | Pipeline coverage to 2.5× | 2.5× | 2.7× | Yes |
| R-17 | Two returning lines at account 2207 | 2 | 2 | Yes |
The first item on the agenda, before any new commitment is made.
Σ reps' revenue in section 1 = ledger revenue for the quarter Σ bridge lines = actual − last forecast
Slides built by hand. The week of reconciling; the disagreement on slide nine.
Commitments without measures. "Focus on the base"; unreviewable.
Last quarter's commitments not reviewed. The QBR becomes a quarterly promise.
No bridge. The forecast miss is a mystery each quarter.
Mapped once, the ledger, the CRM exports and the pipeline snapshots produce the six tables and the commitment review every quarter. Covirage builds this from the exports as they are. The board reporting solution describes the setup, and the forecast bridge guide covers section one's bridge in depth.
Not 'grow the north'. 'Coverage on tier one accounts from 53 to 80 percent by the end of week eight', with the table that will show it. Three per rep, each checkable from a table at the next QBR, and the review of them is the first item on the next agenda.
Because the QBR is where the forecast made at the last QBR meets what happened, deal by deal. A bridge that shows which committed deals closed, slipped or were lost is the calibration the next forecast needs, and it takes two minutes if the snapshots exist.
An hour, if the six tables are computed from the exports. A QBR that takes a week to prepare is a QBR whose numbers were assembled by hand, and the week is spent reconciling rather than deciding.