Capture, Convert, Collect, Compound
A company's revenue runs through four layers. Money enters, money moves, money lands, and money repeats. Each layer depends on the one below it, so a correction applied above a broken layer gets rebuilt twice. This is the standard the Revenue System Score measures against, published so you can apply it yourself.
The Four Layers
Capture
How money enters. Capture covers everything that happens between a buyer raising their hand and a record existing that someone owns. A lead arrives, it lands somewhere permanent, it carries the source that produced it, and a named person is responsible for the next move within a defined window.
Convert
How money moves. Convert covers the movement of an owned record through the stages between first conversation and signed work. A stage means one specific thing, the conditions for leaving it are written down, and the pipeline total reflects work that exists at the amount it will be billed at.
Collect
How money lands. Collect covers the path from signed work to cash received. What sales closed, what finance invoiced, and what the bank received are the same figure, traceable in both directions, without a person holding the exceptions in their head.
Compound
How money repeats. Compound covers whether the work already delivered produces the next work. Renewals and expansions exist as tracked pipeline before they are due, past clients are contacted on a schedule the business owns, and the process runs when the founder is unavailable.
Capture
Capture covers everything that happens between a buyer raising their hand and a record existing that someone owns. A lead arrives, it lands somewhere permanent, it carries the source that produced it, and a named person is responsible for the next move within a defined window.
What it looks like when it holds
- *Every inbound path writes to one place
- *Source is recorded at creation, not reconstructed later
- *Ownership is assigned the moment the record exists
- *Response time is measured, not assumed
What it costs when it does not
When Capture fails, the business cannot say where next quarter's work comes from. Leads sit in an inbox until somebody checks it, attribution is rebuilt from memory at the end of the month, and spend decisions get made on a number nobody can defend.
Convert
Convert covers the movement of an owned record through the stages between first conversation and signed work. A stage means one specific thing, the conditions for leaving it are written down, and the pipeline total reflects work that exists at the amount it will be billed at.
What it looks like when it holds
- *Each stage has written exit conditions
- *Open pipeline can be read from the CRM without an export
- *Amounts match what the contract will say
- *The handoff into delivery has a named owner and a date
What it costs when it does not
When Convert fails, the forecast and the bank account disagree. Deals sit in a stage nobody can define, two reports on the same question return two numbers, and the board figure gets rebuilt by hand the night before the meeting.
Collect
Collect covers the path from signed work to cash received. What sales closed, what finance invoiced, and what the bank received are the same figure, traceable in both directions, without a person holding the exceptions in their head.
What it looks like when it holds
- *Closed work and invoiced work reconcile without manual repair
- *Contract value and recognized revenue are separate figures
- *Retainers, milestones, and one-time work each bill on their own rule
- *Aging is visible to the person who can act on it
What it costs when it does not
When Collect fails, the company has earned money it has not been paid. Invoices go out at the wrong amount, revenue recognition depends on one person remembering the exception, and collections happen when someone notices.
Compound
Compound covers whether the work already delivered produces the next work. Renewals and expansions exist as tracked pipeline before they are due, past clients are contacted on a schedule the business owns, and the process runs when the founder is unavailable.
What it looks like when it holds
- *Renewal and expansion appear in pipeline before the term ends
- *Past clients are contacted on a documented cadence
- *The operating process is written where the team reads it
- *Two weeks away does not stop the business
What it costs when it does not
When Compound fails, every month starts at zero. Growth costs the same effort it cost last year, the process lives in the founder's habits, and the business absorbs the cost of re-earning revenue it already had.
How the Layers Are Read
The layers are ordered, and the order is load-bearing
Capture sits underneath Convert, Convert sits underneath Collect, and Collect sits underneath Compound. A correction applied above a broken layer gets rebuilt once the layer underneath it surfaces. A dashboard rebuilt on a data model that is still wrong returns the same wrong number on a faster refresh.
Score the lowest layer, not the average
A business at 78 overall with Collect at 31 is a business that cannot invoice what it sold. Averaging hides the layer doing the damage, because the four layers do not substitute for each other. The lowest number is the one that governs what the company can do next.
Every layer is measured on what the records say
A layer is assessed against what the CRM, the billing system, and the reporting actually contain, not against what the team believes is true. The difference between those two positions is where most of the cost sits.
The scored version of this assessment runs at the Revenue System Score. The capabilities built against it sit on what we build, and the order the work runs in is documented on how we work.
What Buyers Ask
What are Capture, Convert, Collect, and Compound?
Capture, Convert, Collect, and Compound are the four layers CWT Studio uses to assess a revenue system. Capture is how money enters the business, Convert is how it moves through the pipeline, Collect is how it lands as cash, and Compound is how it repeats without new effort. The four layers are ordered, and a failure in a lower layer limits every layer above it.
Why four layers and not a longer list?
Four layers is the smallest set that covers the full path from a buyer raising their hand to cash arriving again without new acquisition cost. Longer lists split the same work into categories that do not have separate owners inside a company under 200 people, which makes the assessment harder to act on.
How do you score a revenue system against the four layers?
Twelve questions, three per layer, scored against what the records contain. Each layer returns a number out of 100, and the total is reported alongside the four layer scores so the lowest one stays visible. The Revenue System Score runs this assessment and returns the result in writing.
Who created this methodology?
Shannon Maguire, Founder and Principal of CWT Studio, built it from engagement work across legal, medical device, marine services, staffing, and professional services companies between $2M and $20M in revenue, running on Salesforce, HubSpot, or nothing.
Does this apply to a company that has no CRM yet?
Yes. A company running on spreadsheets and email still has all four layers, and the assessment still reports where the cost sits. The result names what has to exist before software is chosen, which is the order that keeps a platform decision from being made against the wrong shape of business.
What does an engagement cost?
Scope and fee are set in writing before any work starts. The 30-minute intro carries no fee, and the paid review is quoted as a fixed amount once its scope is agreed.
How long does it take?
The intro is 30 minutes. The review runs on working sessions with the people who run sales, finance, and operations and ends with written findings. Build sequences are quoted with dates attached.
What happens if it is not a fit?
The intro ends with a direct answer. When the work belongs somewhere else, or when nothing needs rebuilding yet, we say so on the call.
Twelve questions score all four layers and name the one carrying the cost. About four minutes, and the result is written for you.