Calculation Lineage

Calculation Lineage helps recipients understand how calculated results within your ROI Model or Calculator were derived.

Instead of presenting an important financial result as an unexplained number, Calculation Lineage can allow someone viewing the model to trace that figure back through the calculations and values that contribute to it.

This can make complex business cases easier to understand, validate and discuss.

What Calculation Lineage does

Your model may contain calculation chains connecting several Inputs and calculated results.

For example:

Annual Transactions → Time Saved per Transaction → Hours Saved → Labour Value → Annual Benefit

The final Annual Benefit may be the number that matters most to the recipient, but understanding how that figure was reached can be equally important.

Calculation Lineage provides a way to explore that relationship without requiring every intermediate calculation to remain permanently visible within the main model.

What recipients see

When Calculation Lineage is available for the model, recipients can see:

Trace the numbers

Selecting this opens:

How this result is calculated

The lineage experience allows the recipient to explore the calculation behind a result and understand the values and relationships that contributed to it.

Depending on the calculation, this can include the path between:

Inputs → Intermediate calculations → Result

The objective is to make the calculation easier to inspect without overwhelming the main ROI experience.

Why Calculation Lineage matters

ROI models often communicate significant financial or operational outcomes.

A recipient may reasonably want to understand questions such as:

• Where did this number come from?

• Which assumptions contribute to this result?

• Which calculations sit between the Inputs and the final KPI?

• Why did this result change when an assumption changed?

• Is this result based on a single assumption or several calculation stages?

Calculation Lineage gives recipients another way to investigate those questions directly within the Viewer.

Example

Imagine your model calculates:

Annual Productivity Benefit

The calculation might ultimately depend on:

Annual Transactions × Time Saved per Transaction

Annual Hours Saved

followed by:

Annual Hours Saved × Hourly Labour Cost

Annual Productivity Benefit

The published model may promote Annual Productivity Benefit as an important KPI.

Calculation Lineage allows the recipient to explore the calculation behind that KPI rather than requiring every intermediate value to be displayed alongside it.

Calculation Lineage and interactive assumptions

Calculation Lineage works alongside the interactive nature of the ROI Viewer.

When a recipient changes an available Input, dependent calculations update.

The calculated results they see therefore reflect their current assumptions.

Calculation Lineage helps explain the relationships behind those calculated results.

This reinforces the connection:

Change an assumption → Calculation updates → Result changes → Calculation can be explored

Use lineage to support transparency

Calculation Lineage can be particularly valuable for important outputs such as:

• Cost savings

• Productivity benefits

• Revenue impact

• Net annual benefit

• ROI

• Payback

• Implementation costs

• Operating costs

These are often the figures that attract the greatest scrutiny during evaluation of a business case.

Making the calculation easier to inspect can help recipients understand the logic behind the result rather than evaluating the final figure in isolation.

Calculation Lineage and supporting evidence

Calculation Lineage explains how a number was calculated.

Supporting Resources can provide evidence or context for the assumptions and statements used within the model.

These capabilities solve different but complementary problems.

For example:

Calculation Lineage Explains how an Annual Benefit was calculated.

Evidence Backed Provides supporting material relevant to an assumption or result.

Together they can help a recipient understand both:

How the number was calculated

and:

What supports the assumptions or claims behind it

Where supporting evidence is associated with the model, the lineage experience can also indicate that supporting evidence is available.

Calculation Lineage and Connected Models

Calculation Lineage can also complement modular model design.

When a business case uses Connected Models, recipients may be able to use:

How this model is built

to understand the models contributing to the wider business case.

Calculation Lineage focuses more specifically on the calculation behind an individual result.

A useful distinction is:

How this model is built → explains the wider model structure.

Trace the numbers → explains how a particular figure was calculated.

This allows sophisticated ROI Models to remain understandable even when the underlying calculation structure is substantial.

Controlling Calculation Lineage

Calculation Lineage can be controlled for the model.

Use it when allowing recipients to inspect calculation relationships adds value to the experience.

You may choose to make lineage available when:

• Financial outcomes are likely to be scrutinised.

• The model contains several stages of calculation.

• Transparency is important to the sales or evaluation process.

• Recipients need to validate how assumptions influence results.

• The model is being used as part of a formal business case.

The capability does not require you to expose every intermediate value permanently within the model itself.

Design calculations that are easy to explain

Calculation Lineage is most useful when the underlying model itself has a clear calculation structure.

For example:

Operational activity → Improvement → Measurable impact → Financial benefit

is easier to understand than a single large calculation containing many unrelated assumptions.

When building your model:

• Use clear Input and Output labels.

• Build calculations in logical stages where appropriate.

• Avoid unnecessary complexity.

• Use business terminology rather than technical naming.

• Make important assumptions explicit.

• Keep calculation relationships financially and operationally coherent.

Good model design improves both the main Viewer experience and the usefulness of Calculation Lineage.

What Calculation Lineage does not do

Calculation Lineage explains the relationships within the model.

It does not independently determine whether an assumption is commercially appropriate or whether the resulting business case is correct for a particular organisation.

For example, lineage can show that:

40% adoption → 12,000 automated transactions → £240,000 annual benefit

but the decision about whether 40% adoption is a reasonable assumption still requires business judgement.

Calculation Lineage improves transparency.

It does not replace validation of the assumptions themselves.

Best practices

When using Calculation Lineage:

• Use clear business-friendly labels throughout the model.

• Make important assumptions explicit and editable where appropriate.

• Build calculations in understandable stages.

• Avoid unnecessary intermediate calculations.

• Use supporting evidence where an assumption or result benefits from additional context.

• Preview the published model and test important lineage paths.

• Consider which results recipients are most likely to scrutinise.

The key principle

A strong ROI Model should not only communicate:

What is the result?

It should also make it possible to understand:

How did we get there?

Calculation Lineage helps your recipients move from the final number back through the business logic that produced it.