Financials & COPQ
How SixGrid tracks project money — and how to choose the financial model that fits your program.
Two Financial Models
Every organization chooses one of two financial models at Settings, Projects, Financial Model (Owners and Admins only). The model determines what financial figures appear everywhere in SixGrid — project pages, dashboards, and reports.
- Full accounting — the default. Projects track Benefits (classified as hard or soft), Costs, and Net Hard Savings. Choose this if your program verifies savings and nets them against costs.
- COPQ-based — projects track a COPQ opportunity and Costs, and nothing else. No benefits, no netting, anywhere. Choose this if your program measures the size of the problem being attacked rather than netting verified savings.
Switching is instant, org-wide, and non-destructive — no data is ever deleted. Switching to COPQ-based hides benefits and net figures; switching back reveals them again exactly as they were.
What Is COPQ?
COPQ stands for Cost of Poor Quality — the estimated annual cost of the defects, rework, waste, and lost opportunity a project is targeting. It answers the question "how big is this problem in dollars?" Teams typically estimate it early, during Define, and refine it as they learn more about the process.
Every project, in either model, has a COPQ card at the top of its Financials tab. It shows the annualized dollar value, an optional one-line Basis — the headline formula behind the number — and a collapsible section for dated notes (with authors) and file attachments, so the working papers behind the estimate live right next to it.
COPQ is the opportunity, not a benefit. It never counts toward benefit totals, cost totals, or net savings, in either model.
How Each Model Changes What You See
- Project Financials tab — in full accounting: the COPQ card, a four-card summary (Hard Savings, Soft Savings, Total Costs, Net Hard Savings), Benefits, and Costs. In COPQ-based: the COPQ card and Costs only.
- Dashboard — in full accounting: Net Impact and benefit figures. In COPQ-based: a Total COPQ tile summing COPQ across all projects, with a count of how many projects have COPQ set.
- Project cards — in full accounting: the project's benefit figure. In COPQ-based: the project's COPQ.
One more difference: in full accounting, once a project has both a COPQ and at least one benefit, the COPQ card adds a line reading "Benefits captured: $X — Y% of the opportunity." It shows how much of the opportunity the project has converted so far. This line never appears in COPQ-based mode.
Hard and Soft Benefits (Full Accounting)
Every new benefit requires a classification: Hard (verifiable dollars) or Soft (estimated or indirect value).
Benefits created before this feature existed show an Unclassified badge. They still count in overall benefit totals, but they do not count in the Hard or Soft summary cards, and they do not count in Net Hard Savings. If your totals look lower than expected, this is usually why — edit each unclassified benefit and pick Hard or Soft.
Net Hard Savings = Hard Savings − Total Costs.
Who Can Edit
COPQ, benefits, and costs are edited by project leaders and associate leaders — the people with full project access. Everyone else on the project sees financials read-only.
The financial model setting itself can only be changed by Owners and Admins.
Large Numbers
On dashboards and project cards, amounts of $1M or more display compactly — "$15.51M" — to keep the layout readable. Hover over a compact figure to see the exact amount. Detail pages always show exact values.