How you use each screen

Written for 5 of 85 screens so far. The rest are being added in the order people reach them.

1. /commission

   When would you open this?

   Any time you want to know what this month is actually worth to you — and especially in the last week of a quarter, when one more deal might cross you into your accelerator.

   What you do

   1. Open it and read the earned figure first. That is closed business only — money you have made, not money you might make.
   2. Look at the forecast figure underneath. It is separate on purpose and is never added to the first one.
   3. Check how far you are from quota, and from the threshold if your plan has one.
   4. Open any deal in the list to see the rate that was applied to it and why.

   What you get

   A number you can plan around, with every deal that produced it listed underneath, so you can check it rather than trust it.

   What people get wrong

   Reading the forecast as money. It is what you would earn if every open deal landed at its current probability — and deals do not all land. The two figures are kept apart on this screen precisely so nobody adds them together by accident.

2. /pipeline

   When would you open this?

   At the start of the week, and before any conversation with your manager about what is going to close.

   What you do

   1. Scan the stages left to right — the shape tells you more than any single deal does.
   2. Look for deals sitting in one stage far longer than the rest. That is where the pipeline is actually stuck.
   3. Commit your forecast at the bottom when you are ready to put a number behind it.
   4. Come back after the period closes and compare what you committed against what happened.

   What you get

   An honest picture of what is really moving, and a commitment that is kept on the record so the comparison can be made later.

   What people get wrong

   Committing a number you hope for rather than one you believe. The commitment is append-only — last month's is still there — and the value of this screen is entirely in that comparison. A number chosen to please somebody teaches you nothing three months from now.

3. /cash-flow

   When would you open this?

   When you need to know when money is actually arriving — before a payroll run, before agreeing to a new hire, or when a client's payments feel slower than they used to.

   What you do

   1. Start with the aging buckets. Anything past 60 days is money you should already have.
   2. Read the time-to-cash grid underneath: it shows which kinds of customer pay slowly, not just which invoice is late.
   3. Look at the carry cost column — that is what waiting is costing you, in money, per year.
   4. Use the list to decide who to chase, in order of what it is costing rather than what is oldest.

   What you get

   A short list of who to chase, ranked by what their slowness actually costs — and a figure you can put in front of them.

   What people get wrong

   Chasing the oldest invoice first. The oldest is often the smallest. The grid ranks by cost, which is usually a different customer entirely — and it is the one worth a phone call today.

4. /tickets

   When would you open this?

   The moment something in Qwota does not work the way you expected — not later, when you have forgotten what you were doing.

   What you do

   1. Describe what happened in your own words. Do not try to write it up as a bug report.
   2. Read the answers that appear as you type. If one of them solves it, you are done and no ticket exists.
   3. If nothing matches, check what is attached — the page you were on, your browser, your window size — and send it.
   4. Everything you send, and every reply, stays on this screen.

   What you get

   Either an answer in seconds, or a report that arrives with enough detail that nobody has to ask you what you were doing.

   What people get wrong

   Waiting until the end of the day. Qwota attaches what was on your screen at the moment you report it, and that context is the difference between a fix today and a week of questions.

5. /video-message

   When would you open this?

   When an email would take four paragraphs and still be misread — a pricing explanation, a walkthrough of a report, or anything where tone matters.

   What you do

   1. Choose screen, camera, or both, and record. Nothing is uploaded while you talk.
   2. Trim the start and the end. The first few seconds of any recording are somebody finding the mouse.
   3. Build the moving thumbnail. That is the small animation that goes in the email.
   4. Save it, drag it into your email, and paste the link underneath.

   What you get

   A short video the buyer actually watches, and a record of who opened it and how far they got — including anybody it was forwarded to.

   What people get wrong

   Expecting the email itself to play sound. No email program on earth plays video or audio inside a message. The moving picture is what earns the click; the voice is on the page the click opens.