Reading the ROI dashboard

The ROI dashboard (ROI in the sidebar) is your top-level view of how your AI portfolio is performing. Here's what each piece means.

The tiles

Cash value — approved value that shows in the books, across initiatives in the reporting period: revenue gained at your margin, cost savings, cost avoidance, and freed capacity a person showed became cash. Entries waiting on approval don't count.
Freed capacity — approved hours and output freed up, priced at what they cost. It isn't cash, because payroll is the same afterwards, so it's in no other tile. Where some of it was shown to have become cash, the tile says how much, and that amount counts in Cash value instead.
Total cost — sum of all cost entries across initiatives in the reporting period, estimates included
Net cash value — Cash value minus Total cost

Every tile is in US dollars. An amount in another currency counts at the European Central Bank's average rate over its period. A cost whose period's rates aren't published yet counts at the latest rate until they are, and value waits for them; the cost and value lists say what a total leaves out.
- Cash ROI — Net cash value divided by Total cost, shown once there's both cash value and cost in the period

Under each figure, the Value card says what it rests on: a before-figure measured before go-live, one reconstructed after it without the AI, an estimate, or no baseline at all. See Baselines for an initiative that's already live.

Cash value and freed capacity are never added together, here or in any report, and there's no ROI over freed capacity. See How Roiva calculates value for what decides which a figure is, and Adding costs and value entries for recording freed capacity that became cash.

While sample data is all the account has, these figures count it. Once one of your own initiatives has a cost or an approved value entry, every figure here leaves the sample initiatives out, and a line at the top says Sample data is left out. and what it held, with Remove sample data for an Owner or Admin. See Your first initiative in 5 minutes.

Planned vs actual

Each tile sets the planned figure beside the actual one. Planned comes from each initiative's financial expectations as they stand today, over its time horizon: planned cash value is its annual cash value times the horizon, and planned cost its CapEx plus annual OpEx times the horizon. Annual cash value is planned cost savings plus planned revenue at your contribution margin (the initiative's own where it has set one, else the account's), because booked revenue counts at that margin too. Until a margin is set, planned revenue counts as nothing, so a revenue initiative shows a smaller plan than its business case. An initiative with no time horizon set counts three years, and one with no planned figures is left out. Planned freed capacity is the initiative's planned capacity per period times the horizon, beside the cash plan and in no planned ROI. Changing an initiative's targets changes its planned figures. Actual is approved value and every cost entry recorded in the reporting period.

Progress against plan

Cards for CapEx, OpEx, cash value and cash ROI set the reporting period's actuals against the plan to date, the part of the plan that falls in the same months, with the whole plan over the time horizon beneath each:

CapEx is planned on the day work began, so a period that opens after the build holds none of it.
OpEx is the planned rate over the months from when work began.
Cash value is the planned rate from each initiative's go-live, leaving out months it was paused. Until an initiative goes live, it says so rather than comparing.
Cash ROI is the ROI of those three plans to date, set beside the period's actual cash ROI. While the build cost is still being earned back, it can be negative.

Comparing a few months of actuals with years of plan would read as far under plan even with every figure on target, which is why the cards don't. Freed capacity has no card: it is set against its own plan to date on an initiative's page under ROI → Initiatives, beside cash and never in the ROI. The plan is the business case, which anyone can edit; what an initiative was approved to spend is its budget, on Finance → Budget. See Budgets and budget vs. actual.

Reporting period

The period selector at the top sets how far back the actual figures count: the last 1, 3, or 5 years, or all time. The default is all time, which gives cumulative ROI since each initiative began. The Roiva Assistant and a connected AI assistant (MCP) count all time too when you ask about ROI without naming a period, so their answer matches the dashboard. The tiles' planned figures cover each initiative's full time horizon, whatever the period. The cards under Progress against plan set the period's actuals against the plan to date for the same months instead.

Trajectory and breakdown

Trajectory charts cost against cash value, cumulatively, and each period's cash value with freed capacity as its own series beside it. Breakdown splits cash value by type in one bar and puts freed capacity on its own line below, never as a slice of the same total.

Going deeper

The actual value and cost figures open Entries → Value Entries and Entries → Cost Entries, filtered to the same reporting period, so the rows behind a figure are the ones you can edit, import or send for review. On one initiative's ROI they open its own Value and Costs tabs.
ROI → Provisional shows what is waiting on approval beside your approved ROI, in two parts: what was calculated only from your own figures, which needs an approver and nothing else, and what rests on at least one figure Roiva supplied (a default assumption, a before-value Roiva estimated, a default deflection price or recontact window). Approved ROI stays the headline. The only other ROI it shows is with the waiting value on your own figures approved; none is worked out with Roiva's figures in it. Below are those figures, the one the most waiting value rests on first, each with a link to confirm or replace it. While nothing is measured yet, Home links there with See what it rests on. Waiting freed capacity is listed apart and never counts toward the ROI it shows. What's waiting never reaches reports, exports, the API or the Assistant.
ROI → Initiatives has each initiative's figures. Open one for its Formula Trace (its cash value and total cost broken down by type and platform, with freed capacity beside the tree) and Edit Targets (its planned figures).
ROI → Metrics shows how the metrics behind the value moved over the same period.
ROI → Reports has the Portfolio Snapshot (Excel, PDF or PowerPoint), the Board Brief (PDF or PowerPoint, for one fiscal quarter, or the current one to date) and the Value Evidence Register (Excel), plus the history of past exports.

Board Brief and reports — what each report shows and counts
How Roiva calculates value — where the value figures come from