Sales has one number. Finance has another. The board meets on Thursday.

One number, and the reason it won.

Past a certain size the forecast comes from three systems and two functions, and finance has to certify a single number it does not control the inputs to. We turn that last argument — whose number wins, who approved the override, and why — into a governed process that runs every cycle.

Talk to us about forecast sign-offHow it works

0

actions run without an authority ceiling

100%

of overrides carry an approver and a reason

Every

certified number flagged when it stops being true

The difference

A decision in a thread is not a process

Producing the forecast is not the manual part. Every system you own can produce a defensible-looking number. The manual part is the argument just before sign-off, and it is settled the same way every quarter: a meeting, a thread, and somebody senior deciding. That works right up until the person leaves or the board asks why.

How it is settled now

Defensible in the meeting, not afterwards

  • The override is agreed in a thread and never written down
  • Sign-off is a person saying yes, not a state anyone can point to
  • Every cycle re-argues a case that was settled last quarter
  • Six months later nobody can say why the number was adjusted
  • The reasoning leaves when the analyst does

Certified

Defensible six months later

  • The rule is written down, and applied the same way every cycle
  • Sign-off is a state in a system, with an approver against it
  • A settled case becomes the precedent the next one starts from
  • The rationale, the evidence and the approver stay on the record
  • The process outlives the person who built it

At sign-off

Finance signs the number. It does not control the inputs.

Insighter sits at the step between “we have the inputs” and “this is the number we will stand behind.” Six things happen there.

  1. 1Surfaces the disagreementCompares the GTM and the finance view of the same line, and shows where they part company and by how much.
  2. 2Applies your rules, not a defaultWhich source wins under which condition, and how large an adjustment can be before it has to escalate. Usually the first time those rules are written down anywhere.
  3. 3Routes the exception before sign-offWhoever holds authority over that category approves it while the number can still change, rather than after the pack has gone out.
  4. 4Acts in the source systemsThis is the part that separates it from a review queue. The approved decision is written back into the systems it came from, inside the authority ceiling you set — not parked as an adjustment in yet another tool.
  5. 5Keeps the reasoning and the precedentWho approved it, on what evidence, and what was decided last time a similar case came up. Six months later the answer is a record, not somebody's memory.
  6. 6Tells you when it stops being trueA deal slips, a record is corrected, a source backfills — and the number you certified quietly changes. Insighter remembers what was reported and flags what now needs restating.

This is you if

  • Three or more systems feed the forecast
  • The sales forecast is judgment-driven, not stage-weighted arithmetic
  • Two functions publish their own version of the same number
  • A recurring board or leadership date you cannot move
  • FP&A exists as its own function, with at least one dedicated person

And if it is not

If one person can still settle the disagreement in a conversation, you do not need this yet. We would rather say so than sell you a process you are too small to need.

How it happens

Three steps, in this order, every time

The hard part is not the software. It is getting a finance team to say out loud the rules it already follows informally. We start there, because that is the only thing a process can be built around.

  1. 1

    Write down the rules

    We sit with finance through a real cycle and get the override logic said out loud — which source wins when, what adjustment is allowed, who signs. Most teams have never written this down.

    You get your own adjudication rules on paper, whether or not you build with us.

  2. 2

    Run it beside the manual process

    We build the rules into Insighter against your systems, and run a cycle in parallel until the certified number and the one you produced by hand agree. Nothing is switched over on a promise.

    You get a certified number you can compare against the one you trust.

  3. 3

    Govern it

    Every action gets a ceiling: what it may do alone, what needs a person, what it may never do. Then the audit trail that proves it stayed inside them.

    You get a control surface, an audit log, and an off switch that works instantly.

What it runs on

We built the software we do it with

Every engagement runs on our own platform. You can use it without us.

Insighter

Live

The agent that is allowed to act

Most tools stop at showing you the disagreement. Insighter is built for what happens next: it reads your warehouses, databases, MCP servers and documents as one, applies your override rules, routes the exception, and then takes the action — posts the journal, updates the record, sends the digest — inside an authority ceiling you set per source.

Try InsighterHow governance works
  • Three authority tiersRead only, ask each time, or automatic. Automatic is never the default, and a suspected prompt injection downgrades it back to asking.
  • Every action is auditableWho asked, what ran, what it cost, and how to reverse it. The record of an event is never purged.
  • Access is per source, not per personRow filters and hidden columns compile into the query. Neither the user nor the model can widen them.
  • Priced by work, not seatsCredits are consumed by thinking. The whole finance team can ask without anyone doing the maths first.

What we will not do

A number you cannot audit is a liability

  • We will not certify a number whose rule you cannot state

    If nobody can say why one source wins over another, automating the decision just makes an unexamined judgment faster. We write the rule down first, or we tell you not to bother.

  • We will not let an agent act without a ceiling

    Every action has an authority tier: read only, ask each time, or automatic. Automatic is never the default, and a suspected prompt injection downgrades it.

  • We will not train on your data

    Your content produces your answers and nothing else. Model providers run under zero-retention agreements, and every subprocessor is named.

  • We will not sell you a process you are too small to need

    If one person can still settle the disagreement in a conversation, you do not need this yet. We would rather say so than take the money.

Start with one forecast cycle.

We sit through a real close, watch where the numbers disagree, and come back with your override rules written down and what it would take to run them. No slides until we have been through a cycle.

Talk to us about forecast sign-offTry Insighter

One cycle, not one quarter

We sit through a real close rather than running a workshop about one.

Your rules, written down

You keep the adjudication logic we extract, whether or not you build with us.

No obligation to build with us

The findings are yours to keep, and yours to implement however you want.