Window

The period over which a measure is computed: trailing three months for a run rate, twelve weeks for a baseline, eight weeks for an acceptance trend. Stated with every figure and the same for every account in a comparison.

DefinitionThe period over which a measure is computed: trailing three months for a run rate, twelve weeks for a baseline, eight weeks for an acceptance trend. Stated with every figure and the same for every account in a comparison.

Stable versus current

Short windows are current and noisy. Long windows are stable and stale. The choice is stated, not assumed.

Same for all

A ranking that compares a one-month figure to a six-month one is not a ranking.

How it is used

The period a measure is computed over is stated with the measure: trailing three months for a run rate, twelve weeks for a baseline, twelve months for share. Changing the window changes the number.

Example

Dormancy uses each account's orders over 24 months. Coverage uses the cadence of the tier. Share of wallet uses trailing twelve months.

Where it goes wrong

Windows left implicit. Two people compute the same measure over different periods and both are right.

Articles that use this term

Board and management reporting

A board narrative with a citation on every number: how to draft the commercial pack from reconciled figures

A method for writing the quarterly commercial narrative so every figure carries a citation to the calculation that produced it: the reconciled roll-up as the source, the narrative structure, the citation format that survives export, and why the model writes sentences but never numbers.

16 Sept 20263 min read Coverage and territory · Construction and building materials

Accounts opened and never used: the trade account funnel per branch

How a builders' merchant or trade supplier measures what happens after a trade account is opened, from the account master and the ledger: accounts opened per branch, the share with a first purchase within thirty days, the share still buying at six months, the median first-purchase value, and the branches and account openers whose funnel leaks at each step, so that the opening effort produces customers rather than records.

16 Sept 20262 min read Coverage and territory · Tax and accounting

Advisory triggers in the compliance data: the events in a client's accounts that call for a service

How an accounting firm turns the data it already holds from compliance work into an advisory pipeline: the events in a client's filed accounts and returns, turnover crossing a threshold, a first overseas sale, R&D spend appearing, a director's loan, a property purchase, that map to an advisory service, the clients with a trigger and no service, valued at the firm's own fee for that service, and the partner list that comes out each filing season.

16 Sept 20263 min read Forecast and pipeline · Healthcare and med-tech

Agreement expiry calendar for GPO and system contracts: what expires when, and the utilisation behind each

How a medical supplies company builds a contract expiry calendar from its agreement register: GPO and system agreements by end date, the revenue and facilities under each, the agreement's utilisation, contracted categories actually bought, the tier the customer earned against the tier it is on, the agreements inside the renegotiation window with no activity logged, and the identity that revenue under agreements plus off-agreement revenue equals the ledger.

16 Sept 20262 min read Wallet share and penetration · Sports

Asset fit and hospitality utilisation per partner for sports organisations

How a club, league or venue measures which commercial assets each partner buys against the profile of partners like them, watches hospitality renewals with no contact, and tracks box and seat utilisation per fixture from the CRM and ticketing exports, reconciled to commercial revenue.

16 Sept 20263 min read AI and self-service analytics

Association and cause: what the company's own data can say, and the sentence that says it

Why every effect measured from a company's own history, samples and prescriptions, onboarding milestones and renewals, first-touch latency and first-year revenue, delayed installs and non-renewal, is an association and not a cause, the selection that makes it so, the comparison group that removes most of the noise, the sentence that reports it honestly, associated with rather than caused, why it is still enough to direct effort, and the two claims that are never made from it.

16 Sept 20263 min read