What is in Finance
The module has these rows in the sidebar:
- Finance position, the overview, which is where clicking Finance lands.
- Billing, the invoicing desk. See Billing and collections.
- Collections, what is owed and the chase list. Also in Billing and collections.
- Payables, money going out: requests to spend, approvals and payments. See Procurement. Day-to-day requests are raised from Work › My requests.
- Pricing & Terms, shown with a Soon chip. It is not built yet; an engagement's terms are set on the engagement today.
- Cost & margin, what the work earned against what it cost.
- Cash forecast, thirteen weeks ahead.
- Cash book, money in against money out, period by period.
This guide covers Finance position, Cost & margin, Cash forecast and Cash book.
Finance position
The page has a row of tabs under the figures: Finance position, Billing, Collections, Accounts and Budgets. They are the same screens the sidebar opens.
Finance position shows four figures:
- Contracted, from Clients: the value of every engagement on the books.
- Collected, the money received in the cycle running now, named on the tile ("Collected · Q4 2026"). It is the same figure as Intelligence › Cycles. It includes the money for subscription renewals. The note under it says how much is still to come.
- Money out, every payment made in the cycle, with what is committed and not yet paid underneath.
- Past its due date, as it stands today, and across how many accounts. A payment the client defaulted on is not counted here; see In recovery below.
Below them, Collections is a bar for each of the last six months: the instalments settled and the subscription renewals paid in that month. Where the money is lists the figures the tiles leave out, each with the module it came from:
- Still to collect, from Clients: what the contracts have still to pay. A subscription renewal is money paid on top of a contract, so it does not reduce what the contract still owes. Each renewal counts as revenue and as collected on the day it was paid.
- In recovery, when there is any: payments clients defaulted on that finance is recovering, with a link to Collections. See Billing and collections.
- Paid out to date and Collected less spent, both all time.
- Committed: approved or ordered, and not yet paid.
- Payroll: the current annual salary cost from Pay & incentives. Everybody sees the total; only the people who can open Pay & incentives get a link to it.
- Open pipeline, from Leads.
- Margin, per engagement, a link to Cost & margin.
A workspace with nothing contracted, nothing paid out and no salaries recorded sees a page explaining that Finance fills itself as the other modules are used, rather than a page of zeroes.
Budgets
Each project's budget against what has been paid out against it, with the percentage used. Budgets are set in Projects and spend arrives from Payables as requests are paid. A project over 95% of its budget is shown in red.
Cost & margin
Where: rople.app/w/margin
What the work earned against what it cost. The period switch at the top opens on the cycle running now, with This year and All time beside it.
Four figures:
- Revenue: the contract value of engagements opened in the period, with how much of it is collected.
- Cost of the work: what was paid out, what is committed, and labour where your seat is shown it.
- Margin: the percentage left after allocated cost.
- Overhead: payments that are not allocated to any work, and how many of them are waiting to be allocated.
Underneath, the same reading by Engagements, Projects, Offerings (your workspace may call them something else) and Clients. Each row shows revenue, collected, paid out, committed, labour (est.), commission and margin, with a standing: Healthy, Thin, Loss or No cost recorded.
Cost is what was paid out against the work, what is approved and not yet paid, partner commission and, for managers, labour. Labour is estimated from task hours and bookings at each person's cost, which comes from pay. Below senior management (level 3) labour is left out of every figure and the screen says so.
A margin below 15% is called thin and raises an alert to the engagement's officer. The threshold is set in Organisation › Rules & automation.
Overhead and allocation
A payment is allocated by naming the engagement, project, campaign or resource it was for when it is paid in Payables. A payment that names none of them is overhead.
The Overhead tab lists overhead by what it was for, marketing spend by campaign, and Payments to allocate. Managers (level 3) and above see Allocate beside each one: choose what it was for and it moves out of overhead and into that work's cost.
Cash forecast
Where: rople.app/w/forecast
Thirteen weeks ahead: what is expected in against what is going out, and the balance at the end of each week.
Four figures:
- Starting from: the cash in the bank on the day it was last entered. With no balance entered, the line starts at zero and the tile says so.
- Expected in: the money due in the thirteen weeks, weighted by how each client pays.
- Going out: approved purchases, and payroll for managers (level 3) and above.
- Lowest point: the lowest balance in the thirteen weeks, and the week it falls in. It turns red when it goes below zero.
The chart shows each week's expected in and going out, with the balance under each bar. Below it, Expected in and Going out list the items behind the figures.
How the weighting works:
- Each unpaid payment counts at its client's reliability: over the last year, money paid within a week of its date counts in full and money paid later counts half. A client with too little history counts at 85%.
- Money already overdue is placed in the current week at half that weight, and marked overdue.
- If the client has made a promise to pay, the money is placed on the promised day at 90%, and marked promised.
- Approved purchases are expected to go out this week.
- Payroll goes out once a month on the payroll day, as one month of the annual salary cost.
Managers (level 3) and above see Cash balance & payroll day at the top. Enter today's cash in the bank and the day payroll goes out, and the forecast starts from the real balance. Below level 3, payroll is left out of the forecast and the tile says so.
Cash book
Where: rople.app/w/finance?view=accounts
Money in against money out. The period switch opens on the cycle running now, with this month, this year and the last twelve months beside it. Each figure is compared with the period before, to the same point.
- Money in: payments received from clients, and instalments settled without a payment being recorded. A reversed payment is not counted.
- Money out: every payment on the Payables ledger, requests paid and direct payments, with reversals left out.
- Net cash flow: the difference.
- Operating result (est.): net cash flow less payroll. Salaries are held in Pay & incentives as annual figures and are not paid through Rople, so payroll is the current annual cost spread evenly over the period. The result is marked as an estimate wherever it appears.
Below them:
- Cash book: the last twelve months, each with what came in, what went out, the net and a running balance of the movement. The running balance is not a bank balance. Download CSV saves it.
- Where the money went: payments by project, split between requests and direct payments.
- Paid to and Where it came from: the largest payees, and money in by engagement. These names are shown to the people who can read Payment history in Payables, which is finance and the company's leadership. Everybody else sees the same totals and cash book without them.
Where each number comes from
- Contracted, collected, receivables and overdue: Clients, and the invoices and payments in Billing and collections.
- Committed and paid spend, and every payment made: Payables, see Procurement.
- Budgets: Projects.
- Payroll and labour cost: Pay & incentives, see People and pay.
- Open pipeline: Leads, see Leads and pipeline.
Common questions
Why does Finance disagree with my accounting software? Finance counts what Rople knows: contracts, payments recorded against them and payments made from Payables. Anything that happened outside Rople is not in these numbers.
Can I add an adjustment? No. Correct the record in the module that owns it, usually the engagement or Payables. The only things entered in Finance itself are the cash balance and payroll day for the forecast, what a payment was for on Cost & margin, and the invoice details on Billing.
Why is my margin missing labour? Labour is costed from pay, so it is shown to managers (level 3) and above. The screen says so when it is left out.
Why is a payment counted as overhead? Because it does not name an engagement, project, campaign or resource. Allocate it from the Overhead tab, or name what it was for when paying it next time.
Why is Intelligence showing a different figure? Collected and money out on Finance position are the same figures as Intelligence › Cycles for the cycle running now. Where a figure differs, it is answering a different question, and each one names what it counts. See Cycles.