# Linking connections to initiatives

> Why a connection books nothing until it's linked, the link each platform needs, mappings and allocation rules.
>
> Source: https://roiva.ai/docs/linking-connections-to-initiatives
> Checked against the product on October 12, 2026

Connecting a platform lets Roiva read your account. Linking that connection to an initiative tells Roiva which initiative its costs or value count toward. A connection that isn't linked keeps syncing, but nothing it brings in reaches any initiative's ROI.

![Linking a support desk connection as a value source](video:link-initiative)

**Integrations → Unlinked** lists every live connection that isn't counting toward anything yet, the ones with the most synced spend first, and what each one needs.

#### What each connection needs

Every link has a role, and the role decides what the connection books:

- **A cost source link** — the provider's bill is booked as the initiative's cost, so give the link only the part of the bill the initiative runs on. AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Snowflake, Databricks, OpenAI, Anthropic, QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite and American Express are cost sources. A finance system or card platform books the vendors you pick, each at the share you set. A cloud account books the services or tags you pick, Google Cloud the budget you name, Snowflake the usage types you pick, and Databricks the products or custom tag you pick. OpenAI and Anthropic book their API usage, from the vendor's own cost report, unless the link claims only some projects or workspaces, or sets a share. Claude and ChatGPT seat plans are billed apart and aren't in that report, so they come from your books (see [How costs reach an initiative](https://roiva.ai/docs/how-costs-reach-an-initiative)). GitHub books only the AI line items on its bill — Copilot seats and AI credits — unless the link names other products, such as Actions, Codespaces or Storage. Any connection whose bill pays for the initiative needs a cost link, even one that usually plays another role, such as GitHub. A connection that reports usage but no spend, such as Claude Enterprise or OpenAI Codex, can't be a cost source: its cost comes from the invoice in your finance system, or a recurring cost on the initiative.
- **A value source link** — what the connection syncs becomes the initiative's value: tickets deflected in Zendesk, Freshdesk or Intercom, or Salesforce conversations an AI agent handled without a person (see [How deflection value is booked](https://roiva.ai/docs/how-deflection-value-is-booked)), deals won in HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive, payments in Stripe, invoices in QuickBooks, Xero or NetSuite. A won deal, a payment or an invoice is revenue, so it books at your contribution margin, not its full amount (see **Revenue books at your margin** below). Jira, GitHub, n8n, Make and Zapier need a value source link too: it adds a freed-capacity formula that turns resolved issues, accepted Copilot suggestions or successful automation runs into value.
- **Any link** — a platform that only feeds usage data to the initiative's formulas and books no dollars itself, such as Claude Enterprise, Google Workspace or Looker. Its link is an activity source, the only role it can take.

A data warehouse can hold both roles at once. Snowflake and Databricks can be a cost source for one initiative and an activity source for another, or both for the same one. An activity source link to Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery or SQL Server is also what lets you write a metric query for that initiative alone, whose readings are the initiative's own. See [Metrics from your own data warehouse](https://roiva.ai/docs/warehouse-metric-queries).

The link form offers only the roles a connection can book. The others are shown but can't be chosen, each with a line saying where that number comes from instead.

#### The Synced column

For a connection with a bill, **Synced** shows what the provider billed over the reporting period, none of which is attributed to an initiative yet. Click it to see the months or bills behind it.

A value or activity connection has no dollar figure until it's linked, because its value is what an initiative's formula makes of the data. For those, **Synced** counts the records or metric entries the connection has brought in, so you can see it has data waiting.

#### Link, Set up link, or Map customers

Most connections link in their row: choose the initiative and click **Link**. Linking syncs the connection, so it starts booking within a few minutes. Changing a link's role, mappings, tag or share syncs it the same way.

The rest need to know which part of the account belongs to the initiative, so **Set up link** opens the full form:

- **AWS and Azure** — pick the services (Bedrock or SageMaker, say), or a tag: a cost-allocation tag on AWS, a resource tag on Azure. The cloud bill covers everything on the account, not just your AI work.
- **Google Cloud** — name the Cloud Billing budget that covers the initiative. Create one budget per initiative in the Google Cloud console, limited to the projects, services or label it uses, and the link matches it by name. Only its scope is used: its amount isn't the initiative's approved budget (see [Budgets and budget vs. actual](https://roiva.ai/docs/budgets-and-budget-vs-actual)).
- **Snowflake** — pick the usage types: Compute, Storage, Cortex and so on. Snowflake has no tag to split a type by initiative, so a mapping books the account's whole spend on that type. Map a type only when all of it is the initiative's.
- **Databricks** — pick the products, or a custom tag on its clusters, jobs and warehouses.
- **HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive** — pick which won deals count, by a deal mapping or a deal property, and how each is recognized. A one-time deal books on its close date. A recurring deal books as it's earned: ACV ÷ 12, or the MRR, each month for the 12 months from its close date, the close month by its days. Each month books once it has ended, never ahead. A deal that stops being won books no further months. Each deal books in its own currency: HubSpot's deal currency, else the portal's company currency; Salesforce's opportunity currency in a multi-currency org, else the org's; Pipedrive's deal currency. Roiva counts it in dollars at the European Central Bank's rate. A recurring deal an earlier version of Roiva booked as one year at close keeps that entry once it's approved or its month is locked, and stays out of the months; send the entry back, and reopen a locked month, and the next sync replaces it with its months. An approved entry isn't rewritten when its deals change; the **Inbox** lists it under **Changed in the CRM since approval** for someone to send back (see [Approving value and initiatives](https://roiva.ai/docs/approving-value-and-initiatives)).
- **Salesforce** — first choose what the link books: won deals, or the Messaging conversations an AI agent handled without a person. For conversations, pick the Agentforce agent or Einstein Bot whose conversations count. See [How deflection value is booked](https://roiva.ai/docs/how-deflection-value-is-booked).

A finance or card connection (QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite or American Express) starts with an allocation rule rather than a link: see **Allocation rules** below. The vendor mappings on its **Initiatives** tab book only while no rule covers its platform.

**Stripe** shows Owners and Admins **Map customers** instead: its **Customers** tab lists the customers it has synced, and you choose the initiative each one's payments count toward. A Member gets **Set up link** and types each customer's name or ID. A Stripe link books nothing for customers that aren't mapped.

A connection that's linked but maps nothing shows **Add mappings**. It looks linked, but it books $0 until something is mapped.

#### Revenue books at your margin

A won deal, an invoice or a Stripe payment is revenue, and revenue isn't what your company keeps from it. So each one books its amount at your **contribution margin**: the part of each dollar left after the costs that grow with a sale, such as cost of goods or delivery, commissions and payment fees. A $50,000 deal at a 40% margin books $20,000.

Roiva ships no default for the margin, because no published figure is your company's. Until it's set, a value source link to a CRM, a finance system or Stripe books nothing, and the mappings card on its link form says so, with **Set it**. The margin also shows as missing on the initiative and under **Method → Assumptions**. Set it once for the account, and change it there. An initiative whose added revenue keeps more or less of each dollar than your average sale can set its own margin on its **Setup** tab, and its links book at that instead. Each entry records the margin it was booked at. The same figure is what Roiva's revenue formulas read (see [How Roiva calculates value](https://roiva.ai/docs/how-value-is-calculated)).

#### A vendor on both a cost link and a mapping

An initiative can hold a vendor's own cost link and, on its books, a vendor mapping for the same vendor. The link books what the initiative runs on — GitHub's AI line items, the workspaces or projects a model provider's link claims, the usage types a Snowflake link maps — while the invoice in your books is the vendor's whole bill. Booking both counts the same spend twice.

For GitHub, Anthropic, OpenAI, Snowflake and Databricks, the invoice is left to the link in any month the link books, and a row booked there earlier is given up. Two things keep the invoice instead, and the link books nothing that month: an allocation rule for the vendor, which is an approved split with journals behind it, and a locked period, which no sync may change. Months before the link's data still book from the mapping, at the share you set, so set the share to the part of the bill the initiative runs on. A bill line or card charge for a product the vendor's report doesn't carry, such as Claude or ChatGPT seats or a Snowflake Marketplace purchase, still books from your books beside the link.

AWS, Azure and Google Cloud work differently. Your books spell those vendors the same way as their other products — an Azure invoice comes from Microsoft, beside your Microsoft 365 bill — so leaving an invoice out could drop a cost that was never the link's. Both are booked, the mapping form warns you, and you set the share for the part the link doesn't already count.

#### Allocation rules

Allocation rules can decide where a platform's bills go instead of links, on every plan. A connection whose platform has an active rule leaves the table for **Booked by allocation rules** below it, with nothing to link. A finance connection with no rule for its platform yet asks for **An allocation rule**, and its button is **New allocation rule**.

#### Connections that don't need a link

Below the table, the page lists connections that aren't asking for a link:

- **Feeds measurements** — a formula already reads what the connection syncs, so it's doing its job unlinked. A cloud bill an initiative measures itself by is the usual case: the bill is the figure being measured, not a cost of the initiative, and linking it as a cost source would book the very spend you're tracking. Roiva works this out on its own, and the line under each one names the formula reading it. **Link to an initiative** if you do want it booking costs as well.
- **Booked by allocation rules** — see above.
- **Nothing reads these** — linking one would book no dollars and feed no formula, so there's nothing to do.
- **Not for an initiative** — company-wide overhead, or a tool on trial, that an owner or admin has set aside by hand. Its spend still counts as unattributed in the Board Brief. **Put back on the list** undoes it.

#### One connection, several initiatives

The **…** menu at the end of each row has **Link to Several Initiatives**, which opens the connection's **Initiatives** tab, where you can link it to more than one initiative, and **Not for an Initiative**, which sets it aside. A model provider like OpenAI or Anthropic, or GitHub, divides its bill by share, or by the projects or workspaces each link claims. A cloud or finance connection divides it by what each link maps.

#### Who can link

Any member of the account can link a connection to an initiative, change a link's mappings and shares, and unlink it, just as they can edit the initiative. Connecting a platform, syncing, reconnecting, disconnecting and setting a connection aside as **Not for an initiative** are for owners and admins.

The link form lists the vendors, customers and deals a connection has synced but no mapping claims yet, and only owners and admins see those lists, because they come from the synced records. A member types the name into a mapping instead.

#### Next

- [Connecting your first integration](https://roiva.ai/docs/connecting-your-first-integration) — connecting a platform in the first place
- [Adding costs and value entries](https://roiva.ai/docs/adding-costs-and-value-entries) — the entries a link books
- [Allocation rules and accounting periods](https://roiva.ai/docs/allocation-rules-and-accounting-periods) — splitting bills with rules, and locking a month
- [Managing a connection](https://roiva.ai/docs/managing-a-connection) — sources, syncing, disconnecting and deleting