Setting cost and margin targets

What Cost Targets is

Cost Targets is a small configuration deck where you set the numbers you are aiming for: your target gross margin, your target net margin (what you keep, after everything), and the cost ratios you want to hold the line on, labor and overhead. Once you have set them, Verinode shows each target next to two other numbers every week: where you actually are, and where the anonymous peer median sits. It is the simplest tool in Margin, and one of the most useful, because it turns "we should be doing better on margin" into a specific number you and your team can be held to.

Verinode does not choose your targets and does not grade you against them. It reads your latest financials, shows you the gap, and lets you decide what to do about it. The targets are yours: aspirations you set for your own business, not a score Verinode assigns.

Where to find it

Open Margin from the sidebar (iq.verinode.ai/margin). In the Take Action row near the top of the page, look for the Cost Targets tile: a dark, accent-tinted tile labeled "Cost Targets" with the subtitle "Set your margin and cost targets" and a Set pill in the corner. Tap it to open the deck as an overlay, your Margin page stays underneath.

What you see when you open it

If you have never set a target before, the deck opens on an example first: a sample scorecard showing what the finished view looks like once you have set at least one target, a headline number ("Your gross-margin target"), your target compared to the peer median, and three rows: Your target, You're at, and Peer median. Under the example, a caption reads "Example. Yours compares your target to the actuals peer median." That example disappears once you have set your first real target; from then on you only see your own numbers.

Below the example (or in place of it, once you have a target set), the working panel reads:

"Set the bar you want to hit. We'll show it against where you are and the peer median, every week."

Then a list of four rows, one per metric:

• Gross margin ("Revenue left after the direct cost of the work"), a percentage.
• Net margin ("What's left after everything, including overhead"), a percentage.
• Labor cost ("Crew and payroll as a share of revenue"), a percentage of revenue.
• Overhead ("Operating expense as a share of revenue"), a percentage of revenue.

Each row shows the metric name on the left, with a line underneath reading "You're at [your latest actual]" and, where a peer figure exists, " · Peer median [figure]" right after it. On the right, an editable number field for your target, with the unit (% or % of revenue) printed beside it.

Reading "You're at"

"You're at" is your most recent actual for that metric, pulled from the latest financial period you have on file (whichever period ends most recently). Gross margin and net margin come straight from that period's recorded figures. Labor cost and overhead are calculated for you: labor cost as your labor spend divided by revenue for that period, overhead as your operating expense divided by revenue. If you have not given Verinode a financial period yet, this line shows a dash instead of a number, there is nothing to compare against until financials flow in.

Reading "Peer median"

Peer median is the actuals-based median across other operators, shown for context, never as a target Verinode sets for you. It only appears for gross margin and net margin today; labor cost and overhead do not yet have a peer benchmark behind them, so those two rows show your actual with no peer figure attached. Where a median is shown, it only appears once enough peer operators have anonymously contributed comparable financial data to form a cohort. Margin figures sit in Verinode's more sensitive data category (alongside labor cost and profit data generally), so the anonymity bar to publish a median for them is stricter than for less sensitive metrics. Until that bar is met, the peer median is simply absent from the row, not a placeholder or an estimate.

Setting a target

1. 1Open Margin from the sidebar, then tap the Cost Targets tile in the Take Action row.
2. 2In the field beside any metric, type the number you are aiming for, as a plain percentage (for example, 48 for 48%). Leave a field blank to clear that metric's target.
3. 3Repeat for any of the other three metrics you want to set. You do not have to set all four; a metric with no target simply shows no target value until you add one.
4. 4Tap Save my targets at the bottom of the panel.

The button is disabled until you have actually changed something, so you cannot accidentally re-save unchanged targets. While saving, the button shows a loading state; once it succeeds, the button reads "Saved" until you change a value again. If a save fails, an error line appears under the fields (for example, "Could not save your targets."), and your entered values stay in the fields so you can retry without retyping them.

Clearing a field and saving removes that metric's target entirely rather than setting it to zero, the row goes back to showing no target until you enter a new one.

Why targets never touch the benchmark plane

This is worth understanding, because it is a deliberate design boundary, not an oversight. When you save a target here, Verinode writes only to your own record of aspirational targets. It never gets written into the pool of anonymized data that produces peer benchmarks across the network.

The reason is straightforward: a target is a goal, not a fact. If aspirational numbers you typed in were mixed into the same pool as observed, actual financial performance from other operators, the peer median itself would quietly drift away from reality, some of the "peers" behind that number would really just be other operators' wish lists. Verinode keeps the two planes strictly separate so that every benchmark you see, on this page or anywhere else on the platform, is built only from what operators actually did, never from what they hoped to do. Your target sits beside the peer median for comparison. It never becomes part of it.

Putting it to use

A target only earns its keep if you check it. A practical rhythm: open Cost Targets when you review your financials each period, look at whether "You're at" moved closer to or further from your target, and use the peer median as a second data point, not a scoreboard, when your own trend and the network trend disagree, that is usually worth a closer look at what changed in the underlying job mix or pricing.

If your gross margin target is 48% and you are sitting at 45% while the peer median reads 44%, you are already ahead of the pack, and the conversation is about whether 48% is realistic for the next period or whether it is time to raise the bar again once you get there. If your labor cost target is 32% and you are at 38% with no peer median to lean on (labor cost has no peer figure today), the read is purely internal: look at understanding your margin for what is driving the gap, and the decision workspace for how Verinode turns a gap like that into a concrete next step.

Empty states

• No financial period on file. Every "You're at" line shows a dash. Set targets anyway if you already know your numbers; the comparison will populate the moment a financial period flows in.
• No target set for a metric. The target field is blank; the row shows only your actual (and peer median, where one exists) until you type a number in.
• No peer cohort yet for a metric. The " · Peer median" clause is simply omitted from that row. This applies to labor cost and overhead always (no peer benchmark exists for either yet) and can apply temporarily to gross margin or net margin if the anonymous cohort behind them has not reached the required size.
• First visit, nothing set at all. The deck opens on the sample scorecard so you can see what the finished view looks like, with the caption "Example. Yours compares your target to the actuals peer median." It disappears as soon as you save your first real target.

Related reading

• Understanding your margin, for what gross margin and net margin mean across the rest of the Margin page.
• How benchmarks work, for the anonymity and cohort mechanics behind every peer median on the platform.
• Reading a benchmark, for how to interpret a peer figure once it appears.
• The decision workspace, for turning a gap between your actual and your target into a concrete next step.