01
Drop a spreadsheet
CSV or Excel. A PDF or Word file can be quoted. It is not turned into numbers.
Sales and order exports
This is what the export is actually saying.
For the person who has to know what the export is actually doing, for the books or for the next call.
Every number comes from your file. If the file does not have it, the note will not make it up.
You pick what one row means, and which columns are the customer, the date, and the amount. That choice is the book. Team saves it. Individual does not. On Team, next month’s file opens the same way and shows what changed.
The free notes do not save a book. Your file stays in this browser. We keep the totals, not every row.
harbor-and-co-q1-orders.csv
Grain: one line per item
Harbor & Co — Q1 orders
This file is not orders. One row is a line on the invoice, about 2.4 lines per invoice. The name Acme Supplies is on three customer numbers. The biggest accounts use the number, not the name.
Orders
118
AOV
$1.9k
Top account
22%
Recommendation
Count orders from the invoice, not from the lines. Keep the line file for what was sold. Do not rank customers by name until the name and the customer number agree.
Minutes
to a note, not another hour in the file.
Grain
What one row means. A line on an invoice is not an order.
Your rows
We do not keep the spreadsheet. We keep the note.
How it works
From the file to the note.
02
Confirm the grain, then write
Grain is what one row means. You confirm it before a sentence is written. Example: 400 lines can be 90 orders. Those are not the same number.
03
A brief and the report behind it
The short page is the note. The longer one shows the work behind it, and what the file cannot answer.
Why this is not another chart toy
Most tools plot whatever you throw at them. Meridian checks the grain first.
Grain is what one row means. If the file is one line per item, the page will not call that an order count, mix credits into the total, or invent a reason the sheet did not name.
- Order grain or line grain. One row per invoice, or one row per item on it.
- A name that belongs to three customer numbers is called out before anyone is ranked.
- The biggest accounts use the customer number, not the name.
- The dates in the file are shown before anyone calls it a trend.
- The questions the file still cannot answer.
- A next step you can actually do.
Versus the sheet
What you get instead of another hour in the file.
WorkOn your ownMeridian
Time in the fileA weekendMinutes
Line items vs ordersEasy to mixYou choose before the note
The note and the chartsTwo jobsOne note
Next monthRebuild the sheetSame setup on Team. Individual maps it again
PriceYour SundayFrom $79. The book saves on Team
Keep your system. Use Meridian when you need a number the file can support.
Two words
Grain and book, in plain English.
Grain
What one row means. Example: Harbor’s file has about 2.4 lines per invoice. That is line grain. Counting the lines is not the order count. Order grain would be one row per invoice.
Book
The setup you confirmed: the grain, and which columns are the customer, the date, and the amount. On Team, the book is saved. Next month’s file with the same columns opens already set. Individual does not save it.
What we do with your file
- The file is read in the browser. The rows are not stored.
- Grain is confirmed first, so a line is not counted as an order.
- Every total comes from the columns you confirmed. Nothing is filled in.
- Credits stay separate from sales.
- A customer name is not the customer. The note uses the customer number when that column is there.
- If the file cannot support a number, the note says so. It does not guess a reason.
Put a file in. Take a note out.
Start with the Harbor note, or try 3 notes free. The free notes do not save a book.