Three Reports. One Question. Nobody Is Lying.

Your CEO asks a simple question: “What was our revenue last month?”

Finance says $4.2M. Sales says $4.6M. Operations says $4.4M.

So, which number is correct?

Possibly all three.

Finance may be looking at recognized revenue. Sales may be looking at booked revenue. Operations may be looking at completed transactions. Nobody is necessarily wrong, and the underlying data may be perfectly valid.

The problem begins when the leadership team spends the first part of an important meeting trying to reconcile the numbers. Before discussing what happened, why it happened, or what to do next, everyone first has to agree on which version of the metric they can trust.

That is a bigger problem than it might appear.