# Writing an initiative's business case

> What each planned figure on Edit Business Case means, how to write the basis line for it, and how to draft a business case with your own AI assistant.
>
> Source: https://roiva.ai/docs/writing-an-initiatives-business-case
> Checked against the product on October 26, 2026

An initiative's business case is its planned figures: what it should cost, and what it should return, before there is a measurement to say. Each figure is a hypothesis you can defend, and each can carry a **basis**, a line saying where the figure came from. This page covers what each figure means and what a good basis line says. To change the figures, open the initiative and choose **Edit Business Case**.

#### What each figure means

Every figure is in dollars. **Figures are per** sets the period (month, quarter or year) for every recurring figure on the form. CapEx is the one figure that isn't recurring.

- **CapEx (one-time).** What you spend once to get the initiative running: implementation fees, setup hours, hardware.
- **OpEx per period.** What it costs to keep running, stated for the period **Figures are per** is set to: licenses, usage, support. Twenty-five licenses at $40 per seat per month is $1,000 per month, so enter 1,000 with the period set to month, or 3,000 with it set to quarter. What typically goes in these figures is listed under the **What typically goes in these figures** link on the form.
- **Cost savings per period.** Cash: a bill, a vendor's price or a contract that falls, with the ledger showing the drop.
- **Cost avoided per period.** Cash: a loss or a spend that would have hit the books and won't, with the record that says it was coming, such as a quote, an incident log or an approved hire you no longer need. It is cash, but it rests on that record, so keep the record.
- **Revenue uplift per period.** Added revenue, stated as the top line a business case document usually gives. It counts toward planned cash value at the contribution margin, as booked revenue does. Until a margin is set, planned revenue counts as nothing.
- **Freed capacity per period.** Hours freed, priced at what they cost. This is never cash. It sits beside the cash plan, and no planned ROI, net or payback includes it. Report it next to cash value and never add the two.

The form also asks for an ROI time horizon (1, 2, 3 or 5 years; Roiva counts 3 when none is set) and the months to first value. Both have a basis box too. The horizon multiplies every recurring figure (cost savings, cost avoided, revenue uplift, freed capacity and OpEx) but not CapEx, which is counted once, so say why that many years.

#### A hypothesis, not a measurement

Planned figures are typed in, filled in from a template, or filled in by Roiva. No formula calculates them. Once the initiative is live, its value comes from value entries, which formulas and people record from measured figures: [time studies](https://roiva.ai/docs/running-a-time-study), [baselines](https://roiva.ai/docs/metrics-baselines-and-observations), connected systems and approved claims. Those measured figures are what count in cash value and ROI, and the dashboard sets them beside the plan. A planned figure that proves wrong doesn't change what was measured. It shows up as the gap between the plan and the actual, which is the point of writing the plan down.

The business case can be edited at any time. The budget is separate: it is written from the CapEx and OpEx here when the initiative is approved into Implementing, and editing the business case afterward doesn't change that budget. See [Budgets and budget vs. actual](https://roiva.ai/docs/budgets-and-budget-vs-actual).

#### The basis line

Under each figure, **Add basis** opens a box of up to 1,000 characters. Whoever approves the initiative reads the line beside the figure it supports. A good basis line has four parts:

1. **The count.** How many of the thing: seats, tickets, hours, incidents.
2. **The rate.** What each one is worth or costs.
3. **The source.** The system or document the count and rate came from: the vendor quote, the help desk's ticket report, the incident log, last year's invoices.
4. **Who supplied it.** The person or team who gave you the number, so a reviewer knows whom to ask.

For example: "120 hours a month of ticket triage freed, at $90 an hour. Hours from the Zendesk handle-time report for March through May; rate is the loaded hourly rate in Roiva's assumptions for this initiative. Supplied by the Support Operations lead."

A line that only says "estimate" or "per the team" doesn't help the next reader. Name the source so someone else can open it. **Calculate**, at the right of the same line, works a figure out from rows of how many × each: it puts the total in the figure's field and writes the arithmetic, in words, into the basis box.

**Use the loaded hourly rate.** Any figure that prices hours, freed capacity above all, should use the same fully loaded hourly rate the initiative's value formulas read, so the plan and the measured value are priced alike. That rate is an assumption, listed under **Method → Assumptions** with the formulas that read it. Which rate it is (developer, operations or a blended rate) depends on the formula. A rate that is salary alone reads low. See [How Roiva calculates value](https://roiva.ai/docs/how-value-is-calculated).

#### Template figures are Roiva's, not yours

An initiative made from a template starts with the template's planned figures. Those are Roiva's typical figures for that use case, not the account's. While the initiative is waiting for approval, a figure that is still the template's and has no basis is marked on the form: **The template's figure, not yours. Replace it, or add a basis saying why it holds.** Replace it with your own number, or leave it and write the basis that shows why it holds for the account. Figures Roiva filled in that no one has confirmed are left out of portfolio totals until a person confirms them, which saving the form with **These are our figures** ticked does. See [Using initiative templates](https://roiva.ai/docs/using-initiative-templates).

#### Drafting it with your own AI assistant

A business case often needs facts that live outside Roiva: a vendor quote, a ticket export, a headcount, a finance spreadsheet. If your AI assistant is [connected to Roiva](https://roiva.ai/docs/connecting-ai-assistants-mcp), it can read the initiative, its template, its formulas' inputs and assumptions, and the definitions of its metrics, and set them beside the documents and systems your assistant can already reach. Ask it for a draft of each figure with a basis line that names its source.

Where your account lets assistants propose changes (Owners and Admins by default, under **Who can let AI assistants propose changes** on **Organization Settings → API Access**, and for an access token, only one issued with **Can draft changes for review**), the assistant can send that draft to Roiva for you to review: each figure with its basis line and the source it cites. Nothing changes until a person saves it. It can't draft one for a sample initiative, or for one that is in review, rejected or dismissed. Where your account doesn't let it, enter the figures and basis lines yourself under **Edit Business Case**.

A drafted business case waits under **Inbox → Proposals**, for the person whose assistant drafted it and for the account's Owners and Admins. Its page shows each figure as the business case has it now beside the one proposed, with its basis line, its source and anything flagged. **Review on Edit Business Case** opens the form with each drafted figure under its field:

- **Use** puts the figure in its field and copies its basis line into the basis box. Change the figure or the line before you save if it needs it; change both, and Roiva counts that figure as yours rather than as one you used from the draft.
- **Use all** takes every drafted figure that isn't flagged. A figure is flagged when it is far from the one there now (under a tenth of it or over ten times it), sets a figure to $0, replaces a basis line someone wrote, or is freed capacity with a basis that doesn't name the hourly rate the initiative's formulas read. CapEx and OpEx are flagged too when, while the initiative is Identified, they would take it across the senior approval threshold. Use a flagged figure on its own once you've checked it.
- Saving accepts the draft in your name, with only the figures you used. Save one of its two figures and the draft reads "1 of its 2 figures used" and keeps only that figure and its source; the figure you didn't use stays as it was. A save that used none of them leaves the draft waiting.

Once saved, the initiative's activity shows the basis change with the lines the assistant drafted, such as "Planned freed capacity drafted by AI (Claude · claude.ai)". The basis drawer, which **See how** on the Overview's business case tile opens, marks a line the assistant wrote "Drafted by AI" for as long as it stands as saved. If the initiative already has an approved budget, saving drafted figures doesn't change it; a planned value figure still bounds what auto-approve lets through.

Check each count and each source before you save, and keep the document or export the number came from, for example on the initiative's **Documents** card (see [Creating initiatives from documents, and the Documents card](https://roiva.ai/docs/uploading-documents)). If the business case already exists as a document, **Fill from a document** at the top of **Edit Business Case** reads it for the figures instead.

Whatever drafts a figure, you own it once you save it, and approvers read the basis line you saved.