Every recommendation starts from transparent inputs and readable formulas. Advisors can show what changed instead of asking clients to trust a black box.
Methodology
Transparent formulas, clear recommendations, monitored decisions.
Clear Margins is built for the middle moment between a rough spreadsheet and a fully governed finance model: when an advisor needs to explain a money decision clearly before the client commits cash.
Principles
What Clear Margins is designed to do.
The core answer is approve, approve with guardrails, reject, or needs better data. Numbers are supporting evidence, not the final deliverable.
Client portals and reports prioritize plain-English recommendations, assumptions, cases, margin impact, runway impact, advisor notes, and guardrails.
Manual entry and CSV uploads work first. Live connectors, API keys, and automated monitoring belong in Scale workflows when the operating loop is recurring.
Decision loop
How an answer becomes a client-ready decision record.
- 01Capture raw assumptions
Record the actual inputs behind the decision: price, COGS, discount, spend, ROAS, returns, lead time, cash, burn, utilization, or revenue coverage.
- 02Model scenarios
Compare base, upside, downside, and stress cases so the client can see what has to go right and what breaks first.
- 03Run policy checks
Flag margin floor, ROAS floor, volume-lift realism, inventory risk, runway floor, data confidence, and stakeholder approval risk.
- 04Set guardrails
Attach thresholds, review windows, rollback rules, missing-data requests, and monitoring triggers to the recommendation.
- 05Capture approval
Preserve approve, request changes, reject, or needs-better-data status against the exact proposal version.
- 06Monitor the baseline
Launchable approved decisions become active baselines. Actuals can then be compared against the locked recommendation.
Core checks
The formulas are intentionally understandable.
The product chains familiar operating metrics into a decision workflow. The goal is not to hide complexity; it is to show only the complexity needed to make the next call.
Contribution margin
Revenue minus product cost, fulfillment, refunds, discount cost, payment fees, and other variable costs that move with the decision.
Break-even ROAS
Revenue divided by contribution after variable costs. This becomes the paid media floor before spend can scale.
Discount lift hurdle
The extra unit volume needed to replace contribution profit lost to a lower selling price.
Reorder point
Average demand times lead time plus safety stock, adjusted for campaign lift when the decision includes a promo or ad scale.
Runway impact
Cash balance divided by monthly burn after the proposed decision, including spend, inventory, or fixed-cost changes.
Data boundaries
What happens to inputs and saved workflows.
BoundaryFree calculator inputs stay browser-local unless you choose a paid workflow that saves reports or scenarios.BoundarySaved scenarios preserve raw assumptions, source context, outputs, and guardrail summaries.BoundaryAgency workspaces can store client notes, report drafts, approval status, share links, and decision history.BoundaryScale workflows can add connected metrics, API keys, audit trails, alerts, and governed monitoring.BoundaryClear Margins is decision support, not legal, tax, accounting, investment, or financial advice.
See it applied