The first deliverable
What you actually get back.
One case family, one quarter, one page. Every line traced to a document, an export row or a named role, so your finance team can check it without us in the room. The company below is invented and so are the figures — what is real is the format.
Leak statement
A systems integrator, ~340 people, one German site · one case family · one quarter
| What | Traced to | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Delivered work with no change request raised | Timesheet export, 412 rows · statement of work v3, §4 | €84,500 |
| Scope agreed in a status call, never written down | Meeting record, 6 occurrences · confirmed by the delivery lead | €31,200 |
| Milestones accepted after the agreed date | Acceptance log · 3 milestones, 47 days total | €12,800 |
| Written off rather than disputed | Credit notes, 4 · reason field blank on all four | €22,400 |
| One quarter, one case family | €150,900 | |
Every line traces to something. That is the whole format: a number your finance team can check line by line, against a document, an export row or a named role — not a total you have to take on trust. Where a line is an inference rather than arithmetic, it says so and you can reject it.
Before you take this to a board
Not all of it is recoverable.
- Historic, recoverable. Delivered work with enough of a trail to raise now. Usually the smallest of the three.
- Historic, gone. Work conceded months ago with no documentation. Real money, and you are not getting it back. Its value is that it sizes the leak.
- Forward, preventable. The same leak, stopped from happening again. This is where nearly all the value is, and it arrives over quarters rather than in one collection.
Anyone who shows you one big number and implies you can invoice it is selling you a number, not a result.