SYNTHETIC EXAMPLE · ALL RECORDS INVENTED
September sales: a clearer next step
A static worked dashboard and shared metric dictionary. The group is eight deals first qualified during September 2026. Business position: 30 September, 23:59:59 UTC. Revised with records received by 2 October, 09:00 UTC. These are group totals, not all company sales for September.
Orders won · bookings
90,000 SAR
Written customer acceptance; full agreed order value.
Invoices issued
65,000 SAR
Issued amounts for these deals; not accounting revenue.
Cash received
50,000 SAR
Received payments allocated to these invoices.
Which deals reached each step?
3 / 8 = 37.5% — won out of the eight September-qualified deals by the reporting date. Four are still open and one was lost. This is not a forecast of their eventual outcome.
The bars count steps ever reached by the same group. Do not add them: one deal appears in several bars. Current, separate stages: 2 qualified, 2 quoted, 3 won, 1 lost. Won among closed deals is a different measure: 3 ÷ (3 + 1) = 75%.
What should the team follow up?
The four open deals total SAR 65,000. They are possible orders, not promised revenue. The team can check the two outstanding quotes and prepare quotes for the other two customers. Finance can separately follow the SAR 15,000 of issued invoices not yet collected; no overdue claim is made because this example has no due dates.
Why the September figure changed
The original September view showed 2 of 8 won (25%), SAR 70,000 booked, SAR 60,000 invoiced and SAR 50,000 collected. D03 was still recorded as quoted. On 2 October, version 2 confirmed that D03 had actually been won on 29 September; a September invoice also arrived late. The revised view shows 3 of 8 won (37.5%), SAR 90,000 booked and SAR 65,000 invoiced. Cash stays SAR 50,000. This corrects the report; it is not an October sale or measured sales improvement.
The input contains 11 deal rows: 9 first versions, one identical repeat of D03-v1 and one later D03 version. Remove the identical repeat; select the latest version known at each cutoff for each deal ID. Keep the previous version for the audit trail. D09 was qualified in August, so it stays outside every total on this dashboard even though it was won in September. A conflicting repeat with the same deal ID and version, or an unknown ID, should be checked, not silently discarded. Keep the business cutoff too: an event occurring after September must not change this September view. Use the eligible earlier stage history instead.
Shared sales metric dictionary
| Measure | Agreed rule for this example | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| Reporting group | Deals first qualified 1–30 September inclusive; membership stays fixed when later records arrive. | Sales operations |
| Stage rules | Qualified: need and sales owner confirmed. Quoted: written price offer sent. Won: written customer acceptance. Lost: recorded rejection or closed without an order. Every won/lost deal in this demo passed through quoted. | Sales operations |
| Conversion | Count won in this group by September end ÷ all 8 qualified deals × 100. Keep open and lost deals in the denominator. Do not replace it with the 4 closed deals. | Commercial director |
| Bookings | Sum full agreed order values once per won deal, effective by September end. Not invoices, cash or recognized revenue. | Sales owner |
| Issued invoices | Sum unique issued invoice IDs linked to the group, issued by September end and known by the cutoff. Exclude drafts/voids. | Finance owner |
| Collected cash | Sum unique received payment IDs against those invoices by September end, known by the cutoff. Sum payments separately before linking invoice/deal totals. | Finance owner |
All figures use Saudi riyals (SAR) and exclude tax, foreign exchange, credit notes, refunds and cancellations. This simplified example has none of those events; real reporting needs agreed rules for them. Finance must define accounting revenue separately. These illustrative definitions are not universal sales or accounting standards.
Trace the numbers back to the deals
On a phone, scroll each table horizontally to see all columns. Dates are in 2026. IDs are fictional. Only won deals contribute to bookings; values for open or lost deals are not confirmed orders.
| Deal | Qualified | Quote | Closed | Current stage | Deal value SAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D01 | 2026-09-02 | 2026-09-05 | 2026-09-14 | Won | 40,000 |
| D02 | 2026-09-03 | 2026-09-12 | 2026-09-20 | Won | 30,000 |
| D03 | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-29 | Won | 20,000 |
| D04 | 2026-09-10 | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-25 | Lost | 15,000 |
| D05 | 2026-09-12 | 2026-09-24 | — | Quote sent | 25,000 |
| D06 | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-27 | — | Quote sent | 10,000 |
| D07 | 2026-09-22 | — | — | Qualified | 18,000 |
| D08 | 2026-09-28 | — | — | Qualified | 12,000 |
| Invoice | Deal | Issued SAR | Collected SAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| I01a | D01 | 25,000 | 25,000 |
| I01b | D01 | 15,000 | 10,000 |
| I02 | D02 | 20,000 | 15,000 |
| I03 | D03 | 5,000 | 0 |
For example, D01 has two invoices and three payments. Its order value stays SAR 40,000; invoices total SAR 40,000 and payments total SAR 35,000. Joining every payment row to the order and then summing the order value would overcount it.
Use the example with your own team
Agree the stage definitions, group dates, report cutoff, currency and owners before comparing people, products or regions. Define where each deal belongs; do not add overlapping groups. Have sales and finance reconcile a few IDs to the source before using a live dashboard.