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Margin Protect · M.02

The model that says no when the rep says yes.

Real-time margin guardrails on every quote, every override, every contract amendment. Block the bleed before the deal is signed — and sign off when the math actually works.

POST /v1/overrides/check BLOCKED · 198ms
Operator G · Q3 expansion · 14 SKUs
−$48,200 below floor
Margin
22.4%
Floor
28.0%
Route
VP Ops
rule.segment_floor · enterprise
resolved 3ms
PASS
rule.margin_floor · 28%
resolved 8ms
FAIL
route.escalate · vp_ops
notified · awaiting
QUEUE
Live · the override guard Overrides hit the guardrail · 4 pass · 1 blocked · 1 flagged
GUARDRAIL · 28% ⨯ BLOCKED · floor breach OVERRIDES IN DECISIONS OUT
▸ Vault deposit
What this guardrail produces
▸ 6 mo in vault → first tier unlocked
▸ Evidence
Margin stability · override discipline · price-floor enforcement history
▸ Tier unlocked
Tier 1 · banksTier 2 · infra debt
Guardrail rule: every override logged with reason + approver — see /the-vault for the full underwriting fabric.
What it looks like

Three signals. One workspace.

Margin trend, pricing rails, and live alerts — composited into one view your CFO and reps both read.

§ 01 · Margin trend

12-week trend by segment

Blended margin · 32.4% · trending +1.4pt
28% floor
§ 02 · Pricing rails

Floor, target, ceiling — enforced

Enterprise segment
22%32% target42%
§ 03 · Live alerts

72-hour erosion lead time

Live feed · last 4 hours
Operator B−2.1pt
Operator A−0.8pt
Site G+0.4pt
The problem

Most overrides are rational. The aggregate is the problem.

Every override looks defensible in isolation. But across 4,000 quotes a quarter, you're hemorrhaging margin and nobody can pinpoint where.

Without Margin Protect

Today's status quo

  • Reps quote whatever wins the deal — discount logic lives in tribal knowledge
  • Margin reviews happen 30+ days late, after the contract is signed
  • Finance can't tell which segment, rep, or product line is bleeding margin
  • Every override is a Slack thread; no audit trail when the auditor asks
With Margin Protect

What changes

  • Every quote scored against floor before send — block, warn, or auto-approve
  • Override requests routed to the right approver in seconds, not days
  • Margin erosion attributable to rep, segment, SKU, or sales motion
  • Tamper-evident log of every override — auditor-ready by default
Capabilities

What's inside.

The six capabilities that make this module work end-to-end. Pick any one as your starting point — they compound.

01

Tiered approval routing

Set thresholds by deal size, margin delta, or customer segment. Route to manager → director → CFO with auto-escalation on inactivity.

Approvals · SLA · Routing
02

Floor-protection rules

Define hard floors (block) and soft floors (warn) by SKU, region, or contract type. Reps see the rule that fired, not just a 'no'.

Rules · Floors · Blocks
03

Override journaling

Every approval captures the requester, approver, business reason, and signal at time of decision. Replay any override in full context.

Audit · Logs · Replay
04

Segment heatmaps

See which territories, products, or reps are eroding margin in real time — drill from a 600bps gap to the seven quotes that caused it.

Cohort · Drill · Real-time
05

Win-rate vs margin curve

Per segment, the model finds the price-to-win curve. Where reps are leaving margin on the table, where they're pricing themselves out.

Optimization · Modeling
06

Exception workflows

Strategic deals — competitive replacements, lighthouse customers — flagged differently than transactional discounts. Both tracked, both reportable.

Strategic · Workflow
The autonomous loop

Four checks. Sub-200ms.

When a rep hits Save, Margin Protect runs four checks before the quote leaves the building. Block, warn, route, or pass — every decision logged, every signal preserved.

§ 01 · Resolve

Fetch live floor

Pull segment, geo, SKU, and contract-type floors from Cost Engine + policy.

~12ms
§ 02 · Score

Compute margin

Quote vs cost, all-in, including freight, install, and finance carry. Confidence band on volatile inputs.

~8ms
§ 03 · Route

Decide the path

Auto-pass, soft-warn (justification field), hard-block, or escalate to the right approver based on the delta.

~14ms
§ 04 · Log

Write the trail

Tamper-evident log: requester, approver, signal, rule fired, business reason. Audit-ready from this moment forward.

~6ms
Policy you can read

Floors are policy, not magic numbers.

Margin Protect runs against policy you write in plain language. No black boxes, no special syntax — and every quote shows exactly which rule fired and why.

Policy is layered: segment floor, geo override, SKU floor, contract-type minimum, and approver routing. The engine applies them in order; humans only see what the policy can't decide on its own.

policy · margin-protect.alm
# Margin Protect · Floors & Routing
when account.segment = "enterprise":
  margin_floor = 28%

when account.segment = "mid-market":
  margin_floor = 32%

when sku.family = "hardware":
  margin_floor = max(floor, 22%)

when margin < floor  600bps:
  block + require "strategic_deal" tag
  route  cfo

when margin < floor:
  warn + require "reason"
  route  vp_ops

# Last edited: M. Okafor · 9d ago
Where it lives

Guardrails sit inside the systems your team already uses.

Source

CPQ + CRM

Salesforce CPQ, HubSpot, Dynamics — read quote, write decision.

Truth

Cost Engine

Live cost basis — no stale ERP snapshots driving your floors.

Workflow

Slack / Teams

Approvers act in-channel with one-click approve / counter / deny.

Trail

Compliance

Every override flows to Govern's audit log — tamper-evident, signed.

Real outcomes

"Our quotes used to leak margin we couldn't see. Allometry surfaced the bottom 18% that were quietly bleeding us — we re-priced or walked. $147K of margin came back in the first 90-day sweep."

VP Operations · Confidential design partner · pallet manufacturing
$147KMargin recovered, first sweep
+8 ptsMargin lift, 2 quarters
18%Underpriced accounts caught
Confidential design partner · case study Pallet manufacturing · Quebec · 400+ customer addresses
Score 100 of yours, free

Hand us 100 of your last quotes.

We'll run them through Margin Protect and show you exactly how many would have been blocked, escalated, or auto-approved — with the margin you'd have recovered.