Overview

The canvas is the centrepiece of the Revenue Engine home screen: a live picture of your whole revenue lifecycle, from a lead being imported to a customer renewing and expanding. Use it to see where volume is flowing, where it is leaking, and to open any stage in the Stage Inspector.

The canvas always shows the engine’s current live state and refreshes itself in the background. It does not change with the masthead’s period selector, which drives the forecast, quota and Operating View panels instead (see the masthead guide).

It has two layouts, Linear (the Bowtie) and Currents (the figure-eight), which show the same stages two ways. A feedback-loops strip sits beneath it, and the Stage Inspector sits further down the page.

The toolbar shows the REVENUE ENGINE · LIVE marker on the left and three controls on the right:

Overlay: Leakage, Money or None.
FLOW / STATIC: animate the movement along the engine, or freeze it for reading figures and taking screenshots.
Linear / Currents: switch the layout.

Each layout keeps its own overlay and flow settings. Currents starts on Leakage with FLOW on each time you switch to it.

The stages

Both layouts plot the same ten stages in flow order. Each node shows a count and, where there is one, a value:

Imported: leads loaded from CSV or data providers.
Working: leads in active sequences.
Engaged: leads engaging by email or LinkedIn.
Replied: leads in conversation, ready to convert to the CRM.
Pipeline: all open opportunities.
Won: closed-won deals, at the pinch point.
Onboarding: won accounts in value mapping.
Evidenced: accounts with measured impact.
Expansion: accounts ready for an expansion play.
Renewed: accounts that have renewed.

Conversion rates are printed between stages. A PINCH · WIN RATE label marks the Pipeline-to-Won rate. A colour key along the bottom reads ACQUISITION, PIPELINE, WON and RETENTION.

Linear (the Bowtie)

The acquisition funnel narrows from the left, pinches at Won, then widens again through retention and expansion on the right. It is the clearest view of conversion.

The section labels above the canvas are shortcuts: ACQUISITION opens the Leads surface, CONVERSION opens the Pipeline Explorer (see the Pipeline Explorer guide) and RETENTION · EXPANSION opens Value → Impact (see the Value → Impact guide).
A LOST marker below Pipeline shows how many deals were lost and their value. It appears once there are lost deals.
With Leakage on, a LEAK N% bar under Working, Engaged, Replied and Pipeline shows how much volume dropped out since the previous stage.
With Money on, a thin bar under each stage shows its relative value.

Currents (the figure-eight)

A true figure-eight (∞): the left loop is acquisition, the crossover is Won, and the right loop is retention and expansion. Section labels read ACQUISITION, · COMMIT · and RETENTION · EXPANSION; in this layout they are labels only.

Click a node to select it. Double-click a node to open the matching filtered view: lead stages open Leads filtered to that stage, Pipeline opens the Pipeline Explorer, Won opens closed-won opportunities, and the retention stages open Value → Impact with a matching filter or sort.
Satellite markers label where volume leaves the engine: BOUNCED, NO REPLY, DISQUALIFIED, LOST, STALLED and CHURN. The Lost marker carries the count and value of lost deals.
Curved arrows along the bottom draw the feedback loops with live counts: ↻ Lost · Nurture, ↻ Proof · Outreach and ↻ Expansion → New ARR.
With Leakage on, each stage shows a LEAK N% bar based on its incoming conversion rate.
The footer names the selected or hovered stage, for example SELECTED · PIPELINE · 42 with its value. With nothing selected it reads Click any node to inspect →.

Signal rings

Stages can carry rings from the Revenue Signal Layer: a pulsing halo on the top-risk stage, a green glow on recovering stages, and solid or dashed rings on others. What they mean is covered in Signals & the Loop.

The feedback-loops strip

Directly beneath the canvas, three tiles count how won and retained business feeds back into new pipeline:

Proof points → Outreach: evidenced impact recycled into acquisition.
Expansion → Pipeline: expansion-ready accounts feeding new pipeline.
Lost → Nurture: lost deals returned to nurture.

Click Proof points → Outreach or Expansion → Pipelineto open Evidenced or Expansion in the Stage Inspector and see where that loop lands.

The Stage Inspector

The Stage Inspector sits in the centre of the row below the Operating View. It opens on Pipeline when the page loads; click any node to switch stage. Its header reads STAGE INSPECTOR · and the stage name, with a Closebutton. It shows:

The stage’s count and VALUE, with a one-line description of the stage.
FLOW: the IN rate from the previous stage and the OUT rate to the next.
KEY METRICS: a grid of the stage’s numbers with health dots. For Pipeline these are Active deals, Amount, Coverage (with its target) and Win rate (won ÷ (won + lost)).
CRM STAGE MIX (Pipeline only): open deals by CRM stage.
SUGGESTED MOVE: one recommended action for the stage.

Below these, a stage can show its revenue signals and a way to start tracking one; see Signals & the Loop. After Close, the column reads STAGE INSPECTOR — Click any node in the Bowtie above to inspect a stage.

Find and inspect a leak

In the canvas toolbar, choose Linear and set Overlay to Leakage.
Find the largest LEAK N% bar.
Click that stage and scroll to the Stage Inspector.
Read FLOW and KEY METRICS, then act on the SUGGESTED MOVE.
To work the records behind it, switch to Currents and double-click the stage.

Tips

Use STATIC when you want to read exact figures or take a screenshot.
Switch to Currents when you want to reason about the engine as a system of loops rather than a one-way funnel.
For a prioritised list of fixes rather than a picture, open Diagnostics.

Troubleshooting

The canvas didn’t change when I changed the period. That’s expected; the canvas always shows the live state.
The feedback-loops strip is missing. It appears once feedback-loop data is available. Give the page a moment, or press Refresh in the masthead.
Clicking a node in Currents didn’t open anything. A single click selects the stage; double-click to open its filtered view.
A stage shows no value. Stages with no records read as empty. Check that the relevant source is connected.
The Stage Inspector shows only a prompt. It was closed; click a node on the canvas.

The Revenue Flow Canvas: Bowtie, Currents & Stage Inspector