Model a growth plan: the scenario modeler

What the scenario modeler is

The scenario modeler is where Forecasting stops describing the future and lets you test one. Everywhere else on the page, Verinode is reading published demand indicators and your own operating picture and telling you what it sees. The modeler flips that around: you set a plan (more crew, a different margin target, a busier or slower season than the outlook assumes), and Verinode projects your own numbers forward under that plan, twelve months out, next to what would happen if you changed nothing.

It runs on your real baseline, your real capacity, and your real cash cycle, not a generic industry model. That is also why it exists at all: a modeled, numbers-grounded plan is exactly what a financing or hiring decision needs before you commit to it. Verinode never decides the plan for you. It projects the math, has your AI Co-COO pressure-test it against what would actually break first in your business, and leaves the call to you.

Where to find it

Open Forecasting from the sidebar at iq.verinode.ai/forecasting. Scroll past the two hero gauges, IQ's read on demand, and the seasonal strip to the Take Action row. The scenario modeler is always the first tile in that row, labeled Plan ahead with the headline Model a growth plan and the sub-line "Test adding crew, a margin target, or a busier season against your real capacity and cash cycle. IQ pressure-tests it." This tile never disappears, whether or not you have any open decisions, so there is always something to do here. Click it and the full modeler opens in an overlay, with the sidebar and the AI Co-COO panel still live behind it.

The three levers

At the top of the modeler is one line of context: "Test a growth plan against your real capacity, cash cycle, and the demand outlook." Below it sit three sliders. Moving any one of them recalculates the projection instantly, no save step, no round trip.

1. 1Field crew. Labeled with the hint "Technicians and crew who run jobs, not office staff," so the lever is never confused with office headcount. It moves from 5 fewer to 10 more, in single-crew steps, as a change against your current crew count rather than an absolute number, for example "8 → 11 crew" if you add 3, or "8 crew · no change" at zero. That framing exists on purpose: a slider sitting at "0" would otherwise look like it means zero crew, when it actually means no change from your baseline.
2. 2Gross margin target. No hint line, just the label, the current percentage, and the slider. It defaults to your own current gross margin and can move from 10 points below that (or 10% flat, whichever is higher) up to 20 points above it, in single-point steps.
3. 3Demand adjustment. Labeled with a hint that tells you exactly where its starting point came from: "Outlook sets this to +N%, override if you read the season differently." That default is not arbitrary, it is pulled straight from the demand outlook's momentum score on the page above (roughly proportional, capped at plus or minus 15%), so the modeler starts from the same read as the rest of the page unless you tell it otherwise. The slider itself runs from -15% to +15% in single-point steps.

None of the three lever readouts show a plus sign for a positive value, a demand adjustment of 9 percentage points reads simply "9%," not "+9%" (only the hint text above the demand slider adds the plus, to make clear which direction the outlook is pushing).

Reset to baseline. Once any lever has moved off its default, a small underlined "Reset to baseline" link appears under the sliders. Clicking it snaps all three back to their starting values in one move and clears any IQ read you had already run, since that read no longer matches the numbers on screen. The link only shows up when there is actually something to reset, so it never sits there doing nothing.

The 12-month projection chart

To the right of the levers, a line chart plots your business 12 months forward under two states at once:

• A dashed gray line ("Mo 1" through "Mo 12" along the bottom, with a label every three months) traces your current run-rate, held flat at today's pace, exactly what your revenue would do if nothing changed.
• A solid copper line traces the modeled plan: added field capacity ramps in gradually across the year rather than landing all at once, while the demand adjustment applies from month one, so the two lines can diverge immediately even before any new crew is fully ramped in.

The y-axis carries four hairline gridlines with dollar labels, scaled to whichever of the two lines runs highest, so the chart never clips the plan you just modeled. A small copper dot marks the final month on the projected line. Both lines animate in when you open the modeler or change a lever, the ghost baseline fades in first, then the copper plan draws itself across the chart, so what you are looking at reads as freshly computed rather than a static image.

Above the chart, the same comparison appears as numbers: Projected revenue · 12 mo shows your projected annual revenue as the large headline figure, with the dollar difference against today's run-rate beside it in green (Deere Green, the Expand signal color) when the plan grows revenue, or in red (Ember Red, the Analyse signal color) when it shrinks it. Underneath, a small line reads "vs [today's annual revenue] today" so you never lose the comparison point. Dollar figures throughout collapse into thousands and millions for readability, for example "$1.24M" or "$48K."

The three outputs

Below the chart, two more figures round out the plan's math.

Gross profit. This is not simply your margin change, it is the full net effect: gross profit at your target margin on the projected revenue, minus today's gross profit at your current margin on today's revenue. That means a plan that grows revenue but holds margin flat still shows a real gross-profit gain here, and a plan that raises the margin target on a shrinking revenue base can still come out negative. It is colored green when the net effect is positive, red when it is negative, with a leading plus or minus sign.

Working capital tied up. This is a plain dollar figure, not a delta, always shown in the page's standard color rather than green or red. It is your projected annual revenue at your average days-to-pay, divided by 365, the receivables and unbilled work that would be sitting out there at the new run-rate before a carrier or client pays it. This is the number that keeps a profitable-looking plan honest: growing revenue faster than your cash cycle can absorb ties up more real dollars in the meantime, even while gross profit is climbing. See Cash flow and cash runway for how this same days-to-pay math plays out across your whole book, not just the modeled plan.

The baseline honesty flag

Every number the modeler starts from, your annual revenue, gross margin, field crew, and average days-to-pay, comes from your own operating data where you have enough of it on file. Where you do not, Verinode fills the gap with a typical restoration shop's numbers, drawn from published industry research, so a thin-data operator can still model a real plan on day one instead of staring at zeros.

A small label in the top right of the modeler tells you plainly which situation you are in, so the numbers below it are never mistaken for more of your own history than they actually are:

• "Built on your own numbers", every input (revenue, margin, crew, days-to-pay) came from your own data.
• "Your numbers, peer-filled where missing", you have real revenue on file, but your margin or crew count is still filled from the industry default.
• "Peer medians until your data fills in", no revenue on file yet, so every number the modeler starts from is the industry default.

As invoices, jobs, and financials flow in, the label upgrades on its own, from cohort, to mixed, to fully your own, with no action required from you.

IQ's read on this plan

Under the levers and outputs, a separate section titled "IQ's read on this plan" is where your AI Co-COO reasons over the exact numbers on screen. This is a different kind of read than the projection above it: the chart and the two output figures are deterministic math, IQ's read is judgment about what that math actually means for your business.

The capacity flag. If the plan you have modeled adds crew or a positive demand adjustment, and a coverage, staffing, or equipment constraint is currently active anywhere in your business, a one-line flag appears immediately, before you have even asked IQ anything: "Capacity matters here: [the constraint] is what breaks first. Fix that alongside this plan or the growth won't land." This flag only fires for growth plans, and only for constraints in those three domains, a cash or safety constraint does not trigger it here (IQ's fuller read below can still raise cash separately).

Running the pressure test. Click Have IQ pressure-test this plan (in IQ Teal) and it reasons over your capacity, your binding constraint, your cash cycle, and the demand outlook, all grounded strictly in the numbers on screen, and returns:

• A verdict pill: Go (green, the plan holds), Caution (yellow, workable with fixes), or Stop (red, don't run this plan as modeled), next to a short headline naming the call.
• A read, two to four plain sentences on what the plan actually does to your business.
• A "What to watch" list, one to three concrete things that break first.
• A "Cash & financing" note, when the plan ties up cash in a way worth flagging, called out with a copper accent bar.
• A "Next move" line, the single highest-leverage thing to do next.

Any pressure test draws a small amount of your Intelligence Capacity, since it is AI work you asked for. If your balance is exhausted, the modeler tells you directly instead of running anything: "You're out of Intelligence Capacity for now. Upgrade or top up to have IQ analyze plans." Moving any lever, even by one notch, clears a read you already ran, since it no longer matches the numbers on screen, and a fresh Re-run link appears next to the section header once a read is showing, in case you want a second take without changing anything.

Turning it into a plan

At the bottom of the modeler, Turn this into a plan (copper, the primary action) saves the plan you have modeled. The title is generated from what you actually set: "Grow: add [N] field crew, target [M]% margin," "Tighten: [N] fewer field crew, target [M]% margin," or "Hold crew, target [M]% margin" when you left crew unchanged. Click it and Verinode writes the plan as a real decision, carrying the same numbers you saw on screen (projected revenue, the gross-profit delta, the working capital figure) plus a concrete action plan built from the levers you set: lining up added staff and locking in subcontractor and equipment capacity if you are growing, re-sequencing open jobs if you are cutting crew, setting the margin target with your estimators, reviewing whether your working capital or a line of credit covers the ramp, and re-running the scenario against actuals in 30 days. Once it saves, a confirmation reads "Plan created. Find it in Take Action and your Decisions," and from there it behaves like any other decision, see The decision workspace and Acting on decisions for how you work it from there.

Best-practice example

Say your baseline reads "Your numbers, peer-filled where missing," with a current gross margin of 38% and 8 field crew. You add 2 field crew, leave the margin target at 38%, and the demand adjustment defaults to +9% off a Busier outlook. The chart shows the copper line pulling ahead of the dashed baseline through the year as the two new crew ramp in, projected revenue lands a few hundred thousand dollars above today's run-rate, gross profit moves up with it, and working capital tied up climbs a proportional amount at your current days-to-pay. Before committing, you click Have IQ pressure-test this plan and it comes back Caution: the read names a one-deep service line as what breaks first if the extra crew do not land before the season ramps, and a financing note flags that the added working capital is real but manageable at your current cash position. The next move it names is to lock in the two hires before touching the growth further. You turn it into a plan, and the concrete steps, hiring lead time, the margin conversation with estimators, and the 30-day re-run, land in your Decisions right behind it.

Related help articles

• Forecasting: past, present, and future demand
• The demand outlook: busier, steady, or cooling
• Understanding your margin
• Cash flow and cash runway
• Benchmarks overview
• How benchmarks work
• The decision workspace
• Acting on decisions
• The feed
• Connecting your data

Data sources