# Finance and improve

URL: /workflows/lifecycle/finance-and-improve · Id: `page:workflows/lifecycle/finance-and-improve`

> How a Startup keeps money events distinct, posts a Cost for every Action, passes the unit-economics checks, and improves one change at a time.

Finance tells a [Startup](/business/nouns/startup) whether delivering value pays; improvement turns that answer into the next change. The loop runs every week, and every turn ends in one recorded [Decision](/business/nouns/decision).

## Keep money events distinct
Accepting an [Offer](/business/nouns/offer), paying, delivering and earning are four facts at four times. [place](/business/nouns/order/place) commits the [Customer](/business/nouns/customer) and records the [Price](/business/nouns/price). [pay](/business/nouns/order/pay) settles the amount and posts the [Entries](/business/nouns/entry), and [confirm](/business/nouns/order/confirm) earns the fee.

The ledger follows each fact separately. A payment taken before the work is a liability, never earned revenue, and a [refund](/business/nouns/order/refund) posts reversing Entries rather than erasing the sale.

## Every Action posts a Cost
Every [Action](/business/nouns/action) posts a [Cost](/business/nouns/cost): model calls, compute, [Supplier](/business/nouns/supplier) payouts, human minutes, refunds. A capability bought from the [Studio](/business/nouns/studio) carries an explicit transfer price, and shared Cost is split by a stated rule. [Fully loaded Cost](/agents/finance#fully-loaded-cost) sums them all.

Take an [Agent](/business/nouns/agent) sold as a service that reconciles payouts for online course creators, at $39 a month. Its first 60 Customers show model calls at $2 a month each, but $11 of human review on accounts with refunds. A cheaper model saves little; flagging refund-heavy accounts at signup saves most.

## Four numbers gate Repeatable
[Repeatable](/business/lifecycle/states/repeatable) asks whether the business pays, and four [Metrics](/business/nouns/metric) answer it.

| Metric | Line | Reads |
| --- | --- | --- |
| [Contribution margin](/agents/finance#contribution-margin) | 0 or more, every paid Offer, 30 days | Each Offer earns more than its delivery and acquisition cost |
| [Acquisition payback](/agents/finance#cac-payback) | 30 days or less | The lead [Play](/business/nouns/play) earns back what a Customer cost |
| [Cost coverage](/agents/finance#cost-coverage) | 1 or more, 4 weeks | Outside revenue pays for the whole Startup |
| [Default alive](/agents/founding#default-alive) | 1 or more, latest week | Profit arrives before the money runs out |

Every number counts outside revenue only. A sibling Startup's subscription keeps the lights on; it never proves the business works.

## Close the books
The [Finance Lead](/agents/finance/finance-lead) closes every month by day 5, reconciled to Stripe. [Monthly close](/workflows/processes/books/monthly-close) reconciles every [Transaction](/business/nouns/transaction) to the ledger and closes the [Period](/business/nouns/period). [Dunning](/workflows/processes/billing/dunning) retries failed payments and pauses access only after the last attempt.

[Issue a refund](/workflows/processes/billing/issue-refund) returns money within the [Billing Specialist](/agents/finance/billing-specialist)'s [Limit](/business/nouns/limit) and leaves an [Approval](/business/nouns/approval) above it. Refunds and price changes are one-way decisions: each waits a delay window, during which anyone watching can pause or cancel it.

## Forecast forward
[Default-alive check](/workflows/processes/runway/default-alive-check) runs weekly. Runway is the Startup's own cash, or the budget its Studio allocated; burn is fully loaded Cost, human minutes included.

The [Treasurer](/agents/finance/treasurer) sets spend to FREE, TIGHT or HOLD. Each step down tightens every Limit beneath it, so a Startup that turns default dead slows its own spending before anyone intervenes.

## Improve one change per path
[Weekly review](/workflows/processes/iteration/weekly-review) reads the state's one number, finds where most Customers leak, and makes one [Change](/business/nouns/change) per path with an undo note. Changes on separate paths, such as pricing and onboarding, run in parallel; two changes on one path hide each other's effect.

A change worth testing runs as an [Experiment](/business/nouns/experiment). [Run an experiment](/workflows/processes/experimentation/run-experiment) fixes its threshold and sample first and holds a control arm. It ends in a Decision with the [Evidence](/business/nouns/evidence) and what would reverse it.

Small Startups rarely have the traffic to settle a test alone. They start from what the [Portfolio](/business/nouns/portfolio) already learned and pool exposures across sibling Startups. Office hours then read the week's result and write the next Decision.

## Next
[Scale, hold, and transfer](/workflows/lifecycle/scale-hold-and-transfer) decides what the numbers earn.