Argue with the method, not the number.
Any tool can produce a large number for an AI initiative. The questions a CFO actually asks are where it came from, who agreed to it, and what happens to it when the assumptions change. Roiva publishes the answers, so the argument happens over the assumptions instead of over the output.
How a number is made
The chain behind every dollar
Each link is a record you can open, not a step in a black box.
A formula, not a spreadsheet
Value is produced by a named expression over metric inputs. Formulas are versioned; a revision archives the old version rather than replacing it, so a number calculated last quarter still reproduces today.
A baseline, declared as what it is
Every initiative records the "before" figure, the window it was measured over, its sample size, and the method used — historical average, benchmark, calculated, or estimated. An estimate stays labelled an estimate.
Inputs, frozen at calculation
Each entry stores a snapshot of the inputs it was calculated from and how they arrived. Change a metric next month and last month's number still explains itself.
Sign-off before it counts
Entries move from draft to calculated to reviewed to approved, and can be disputed back for rework. Only approved entries reach a report.
An append-only record
The audit log has no update path. Rows are written, never modified — which is what makes the chain above checkable after the fact rather than merely stated.
The arithmetic
What counts, and what does not
Three rules decide whether a figure reaches a report. They are deliberately asymmetric, because the failure mode worth preventing is an overstated return.
- Value counts only once approved. A calculated but unreviewed entry is visible on the initiative and absent from every rollup.
- Cost counts in full, approved or not. Implementation and run costs are netted off without needing anyone's sign-off.
- Net, not gross. Reported ROI is value minus cost. There is no view in Roiva that shows the upside on its own.
The limits
What this method does not prove
Stated here rather than discovered later. A methodology that only makes claims is a brochure.
Where judgement enters
Three places. Roiva makes each one explicit, versioned and re-runnable — it does not remove them.
- The baseline. Someone decides what "before" was. Roiva records who, when, over what window and by which method — but an estimated baseline is still an estimate.
- The attribution rule. Someone decides how much of an outcome the AI gets credit for. Roiva makes that rule explicit and re-runnable. It is not a causal claim, and Roiva does not run experiments.
- The confidence rating. Confidence is a judgement your team records against an initiative and uses to triage review. Roiva does not compute it, and nothing in a report is weighted by it.
What Roiva will not tell you
- Whether the outcome would have happened anyway. A rising number during a deployment is a correlation; the attribution rule is how you choose to treat it, stated openly rather than buried in a total.
- That an estimated input is a measured one. The method is carried on the entry, so a number resting on estimates can be identified as such by anyone reading it.
- That your AI spend is complete. Roiva sees the providers and tools you connect. Anything bought on a card and never wired up is invisible — which is itself a finding worth surfacing.
Published
The methodologies we publish
Each is versioned and dated, and every PDF Roiva generates carries the version that produced it.
Measurement methodology
How value is calculated, approved and audited once an initiative is live in Roiva — the chain described on this page.
v1 · September 2026 · this page
AI ROI Exposure Assessment
How the free assessment estimates your annual AI spend, how much of it is provably measured today, and which moves close the gap. Full formulas, bands and worked examples.
Versioning
How we update this
The version above is printed on the footer of every PDF Roiva produces, so a report forwarded a year from now can be matched back to the method that produced it. When the method changes we bump the version and date rather than retuning silently.
v1 — published September 2026
- Initial published measurement methodology: versioned formulas, declared baselines, frozen inputs, approval before value counts, append-only audit log.
- Reported ROI is net of cost; value requires approval, cost does not.
- Confidence is recorded by your team for triage, not computed by Roiva and not used to weight any reported figure.
See it against your own numbers
The free AI ROI Exposure Assessment runs the published math on your inputs — five minutes, no account, no card.