Why your three revenue numbers disagree

Finance, sales and product each report MRR, and each number is right by its own rules. Here is how to find the three rules and pick one.

Start with the question

Before anyone opens a dashboard, write down the question in one sentence and who will act on the answer. Most disagreements about numbers are disagreements about the question.

Write the rule down

A metric is a rule plus a source. When the rule lives in one place, with an owner and a version, the same number shows up on every dashboard, in every report and in the board pack.

What we do at Sinclair

We keep a short list of certified metrics, review changes like code, and send one report every Monday. Everything else is exploration, and exploration is allowed to be messy.

If you want the template we use for metric definitions, reply to any of our emails and we will send it over.