# ROI & Value Attribution Guide

**Audience:** Executive, Finance, CFO
**Read time:** ~6 minutes
**Companion to:** Platform Overview

---

## The pitch in one sentence

Civops doesn't ask the CFO to take a marketing dashboard on faith. Every change Civops makes at a plant is tracked in a **GAAP-aligned subledger** — Lifecycle Value Ledger — that ties to the customer's own general ledger via a published mapping.

---

## What's tracked

Three layers, every layer auditable:

1. **Initiative** — a named change Civops drove (e.g., "moved BOM reconciliation from Friday Excel to real-time fabric").
2. **KPI snapshots** — per-period measurements before and after the initiative landed.
3. **Dollar attribution** — the savings (or revenue lift) calculated from the snapshot delta, classified per ASC 350 / 360 / 606.

Every entry is an append-only ledger row — no edits, only corrections-as-new-rows. The CFO sees the same trail an external auditor would walk.

---

## The accounting spine

Lifecycle Value Ledger is structured as a formal subledger:

- **Chart of Accounts** — Civops standard COA, mapped to the customer's native GL.
- **Periods** — month-end close, quarter, year-end.
- **Capex vs Opex** — every change classified at creation.
- **Recognition** — ASC 606 for revenue items, ASC 350 for capitalized software, ASC 360 for capitalized PP&E impacts.
- **Tie-out** — Period Close surface bridges Civops subledger ↔ customer GL with reconciliation. Journal entries export.

The result: the CFO has a formal accounting subledger to defend the platform's value, not an analytics report that gets dismissed at audit.

---

## Access tiers

Lifecycle Value Ledger is restricted by role. Five tiers:

| Tier | Sees |
|---|---|
| operator | Initiative names + status only. No dollar figures. |
| ops_admin | Initiative + per-plant KPI snapshots. Aggregated dollars. |
| financial_controller | All of the above + GL mapping + portfolio rollup. |
| cfo_signer | All of the above + period-close authority + journal entry export. |
| civops_platform_admin | All of the above + tier-edit authority + audit replay. |

GL mapping is controller-class; period close is CFO-class. No accidental dollar exposure.

---

## How the math actually works

Take a representative initiative: **"Replace Friday CSV reconciliation with real-time fabric."**

| Step | Measurement | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Before | 2 engineers × 6 hrs/wk × 50 wks × $95/hr = **$57,000/yr** | Initial baseline snapshot |
| After | 0.5 engineer × 1 hr/wk × 50 wks × $95/hr = **$2,375/yr** | Post-cutover snapshot |
| Delta | **$54,625/yr** | Calculated automatically |
| Classification | Opex savings · ASC 606-adjacent | Set at initiative creation |
| GL line | Customer's "Operations · Reconciliation Labor" account | From the GL mapping |

Multiplied across 30+ initiatives at a typical site, the ledger compounds into a defensible 7-figure annual savings line — with every dollar traceable back to a dated KPI snapshot and a customer-owned GL account.

---

## What to show on a CFO demo

1. **Lifecycle view** — initiatives sorted by lifetime savings, with a sparkline per row.
2. **GL Mapping view** — Civops accounts ↔ customer accounts, side by side.
3. **Period Close view** — the close-the-books bridge, with reconciliation deltas highlighted.
4. **Audit Replay** — pick any initiative, see every snapshot + every recalculation, in order.

The CFO doesn't need to trust Civops. The CFO needs to trust the **trail**. Lifecycle Value Ledger is the trail.

---

## What to NOT promise

- We don't guarantee a specific ROI percentage. We guarantee the methodology.
- We don't claim savings the customer hasn't booked. The ledger reflects what the customer's GL agrees with.
- We don't hide reductions. If an initiative under-delivers, the snapshot trail shows it. The CFO appreciates this.

---

## Next step

The **Pilot Scoping Checklist** walks how to set the success criteria up front so the ledger has clean baselines to compare against. The **Security & Compliance Brief** addresses the SOC 2 + audit concerns finance teams raise alongside the value question.