The goal IQ suggests, and setting it

What the proposal card is

Once IQ has enough of a read on your numbers, it does not wait for you to think of a goal. It picks one for you: the single biggest, most credible opportunity in your own data, and puts it in front of you as a proposal card headed "Goal IQ Suggests" (or "Your Next Goal" once you already have at least one goal running). You do not build this goal from scratch. You look at the number IQ picked, adjust it if you want, and either set it or leave it. IQ recommends, you decide, the same way it works everywhere else on the platform.

Under the hood this is the goals proposal engine: it looks at every metric it can measure for you, weighs how big the opportunity is against what you told IQ you care about during onboarding, and ranks them. The winner becomes the card you see. If you are already ahead of the pack on every metric, it does not give up, it flips to a "widen your edge" goal against your own best number instead. There is always a next goal to propose.

Where to find it

Open Impact from the sidebar (iq.verinode.ai/impact). On the Impact home screen, the Goals row of tiles includes an IQ suggests tile showing the suggested target and the metric it is for, alongside your live goals (if any) and a permanent Set a Goal tile. Tap the IQ suggests tile, or the Goals tab inside the Impact slider, to open the full proposal card.

If you have no live goals yet, the card's heading reads "Goal IQ Suggests" and it is the first thing you see on the Goals tab. Once you have set at least one goal, this same card keeps appearing under the heading "Your Next Goal" so there is always one more opportunity waiting once your current goals are handled.

Reading the card

The headline

The top line is a plain-English sentence describing the goal, built from the metric, your standing against peers, and the target IQ picked. For the three foundational metrics (net profit margin, days to get paid, and revenue per employee), the phrasing adapts to where you stand:

• Behind operators like you: "Keep X% of revenue as profit, like operators like you" or "Get paid in X days, like operators like you."
• Around or ahead, with a credible higher rung to chase: "Pull ahead of operators like you: reach X."
• Already at the top with no higher credible peer rung to point to: "Widen your edge: push your profit margin to X" (a personal-best stretch, not a peer comparison).
• Already holding the lead and the target would be a downgrade: "Hold your lead: keep your profit margin above X."

Every other metric across the wider catalog (cash, cost structure, job speed, team, hiring, growth, safety, materials) gets the same aspirational treatment with generic phrasing, for example "Reach the [metric] operators like you run: X" or "Pull ahead on [metric]: reach X." The tone never reads as criticism. Verinode's goal language is deliberately aspirational: there is no "you're behind" framing, only "here's the next number worth reaching."

Where you are now

If IQ has a real, data-measured (or self-reported) reading of your own current value for this metric, it shows as "Where you are now." This is your baseline, the starting line the goal will track progress from once you set it. If IQ has no current reading yet, this row does not appear at all, and the goal will start in a waiting-on-data state once set (see below).

Operators like you

When there is a credible peer number to anchor against, it shows as "Operators like you." This is the typical value for restoration operators comparable to you, the same peer-anchor logic that powers the Benchmarks section. It exists purely to give the target context, not to expose exactly how many peers make up that number or where the cutoff sits. If there is no peer read available for this metric (or you have not unlocked peer benchmarks yet), this row is simply omitted rather than showing a placeholder.

Your goal

The bottom row, in bold copper, is "Your goal", the actual number the goal will chase. This starts as the target IQ picked, and updates live as you use the stepper below it.

The target stepper: adjusting the goal before you set it

Under the stat rows sits "Adjust your goal" with a minus and plus button on either side of the current target value. This is the stepper, and it is the whole point of "IQ suggests, you decide": the proposed number is a starting point, not a fixed contract.

1. 1Tap − to lower the target, or + to raise it. Each tap moves the target by a step sized to the metric (for example, 3 percentage points for a percent metric, 7 days for a days metric, a proportional jump for dollar and ratio metrics).
2. 2The displayed target updates immediately, and the "Your goal" row above updates with it.
3. 3Keep tapping until the number reflects what you actually want to commit to. There is no separate save step for the stepper itself, the value you land on is what gets set when you tap Set this goal.
4. 4Tap Set this goal. The button reads "Setting your goal…" while it saves.

The stepper will not let you drag the target past a credible band. Every metric has a plausibility floor and ceiling (so a margin goal cannot be nudged to something absurd like 95%), and once you already have a current value on file, the stepper additionally refuses to let the target land anywhere your current value has already reached or passed. That guardrail exists so a goal is never set already-won: if it let you set a target you have already hit, the very next data refresh would fire a hollow "goal achieved" celebration for something you did not actually have to work toward. On the initial proposal card (before a goal exists), this only applies once IQ has a real current-value read; a purely aspirational, no-data-yet proposal has nothing to bound against.

Setting the goal

Tap Set this goal. Two lines sit under the button:

• The data ask, a one-line, honest explanation of what needs to be connected for this goal to track automatically, for example "Connect your accounting once and I'll track this and find what's moving it." This is not a demand, it is Verinode telling you what it needs so it can do the tracking work for you.
• "IQ recommends. You decide.", the doctrine printed right on the card.

If setting the goal fails for any reason, the card shows "Could not set the goal. Try again in a moment." and nothing changes.

What happens after you set it

Once accepted, the goal becomes a live, tracked entry that appears under Your Goals at the top of the Goals tab (and as a tile on the Impact home screen), no longer as a proposal. From that point:

• Where you started shows your baseline value at the moment you set the goal.
• Where you are now shows your latest measured value, once your data has flowed in.
• Operators like you still shows the peer anchor, when visible.
• Your goal shows the target, unchanged from what you set (until you adjust it again).
• A progress bar appears once there is a real measured value to compare against the baseline and target, reading "X% of the way there."
• A status pill in the corner reads Achieved, On track, Needs attention, or a neutral waiting label, depending on whether your latest number is trending toward or away from the target.

If the metric had no current value yet when you set the goal (nothing to measure it against today), the goal starts in a waiting-on-data state. Instead of a progress bar, you will see the honest data-ask line again, plus a one-tap Connect link that routes straight to the relevant Connect flow (accounting, jobs, vendor spend, payroll, and so on) so the data needed to start tracking can flow in. The moment that data lands, the goal picks up its baseline and starts measuring progress from there, on its own, with no further action from you.

Once a goal is live, you are never locked into the target. An Adjust target control lets you raise or lower the bar at any time using the same stepper, and Retire this goal lets you stand it down (it moves to History, and the metric becomes available to set again later). The same already-met guardrail applies here too: you cannot adjust a live goal's target to a number your current value has already reached, since that would instantly "complete" a goal you did not actually have to work for.

Empty states

• No proposal at all. If IQ has no credible metric to propose (typically a brand-new account with too little data or self-reported context to anchor even one target), the proposal card simply does not render. The Goals tab still shows Browse All Goals underneath, where you can set your own target manually on any metric you have data for, or an aspirational one on a metric with no peer anchor yet.
• Already ahead everywhere. If you are already leading peers on every metric IQ can measure, the proposal engine does not stop suggesting. It switches to a personal-best framing ("Widen your edge…") on your strongest metric, so there is always a next goal on offer even for operators who are already winning.
• No peer anchor for a metric. In the Browse list (not the proposal card itself), a metric with no peer or research number to point to lets you type in your own target instead, labeled plainly as "Your target," never disguised as a benchmark.

Best-practice example

Say IQ proposes "Get paid in 32 days, like operators like you," with Where you are now: 41 days and Operators like you: 32 days. You decide 32 feels aggressive given a carrier you are mid-dispute with, so you tap + twice to land on 38 days instead, a real stretch from 41 but not a number that depends on resolving that one dispute first. You tap Set this goal. It appears under Your Goals with a baseline of 41 days and a target of 38, and as your invoices get paid faster over the following weeks, the progress bar climbs toward 100%. If the dispute drags on and you decide 38 was still too tight, Adjust target lets you move the bar without losing the goal's history.

Related reading

• Understanding your margin
• How benchmarks work
• Benchmarks overview
• Reading a benchmark
• The decision workspace
• Connecting your data