Defending the margin you actually sold.
Margin doesn't vanish in one bad decision: it erodes in small accepted changes nobody re-totals. Margin Defense freezes the sold costing as the baseline, watches live cost against it, and names the change that moved the number. While you can still act.
How the sold baseline is defended
Freeze at signature
The accepted proposal's costing becomes the program's sold baseline automatically: the margin you actually sold, on the record.
Watch continuously
Vendor changes, credit notes and recorded actuals update live cost the moment they land. A scheduled watch compares it to baseline.
Attribute precisely
Drift carries its cause: which vendor, which change, which date, how much. Cost lines are vendor-attributed end to end.
Alert in time
A margin briefing surfaces on the home board while the program is still live: with the change linked, not just the bad number.
The change and the money are one record.
In a five-tool stack, a supplier's amendment lives in email while the costing lives in a spreadsheet, so the ripple to the client charge and the P&L is a human remembering to do it. Here the accepted change is the cost update: the P&L recomputes in the same transaction. Margin Defense isn't a report; it's what becomes possible when nothing has to be re-entered.
- Client price, cost to deliver, gross margin and margin %: live
- Financials PDF and spreadsheet exports for the people who want files
- Payment milestones with overdue detection feed the same picture
- Included on Growth and Enterprise; core financials on every plan
Margin Defense questions
What exactly is the baseline?
The costing of the proposal your client accepted, frozen at signature. It's the margin you sold. From that moment, live cost, vendor changes, credit notes, actuals, is compared against it continuously.
How is drift attributed?
Every cost movement traces to its cause: the accepted change request, the credit note, the recorded actual. “Margin went from 24.0% to 22.8%” arrives with “because the coach vendor's fuel surcharge added €18,400 on 22 July” attached. No forensic spreadsheet session required.
When do we get alerted?
Before margin is gone, not in the post-mortem: a watch job compares live cost to baseline and raises a briefing on the home board and program overview when drift crosses the line. The alert links to the change that caused it.
Does it handle multiple currencies and tax?
Costing supports multi-currency with named tax treatments. EU VAT, reverse charge, US sales tax, so “margin” means margin after the tax reality of quoting in one currency and spending in another.
See it on your own programs.
A 30-minute walkthrough with the team, on data that looks like yours. Sales-led onboarding: we load your catalog, your vendors and your first programs with you.