G&A Payroll
Fully-loaded compensation for finance, HR, operations, admin, and executive/admin allocation for the period. The people cost of running the company. — Finance KPI, I'mBoard-authored (editorial tier).
I'mBoard-authored (editorial tier)
No public third-party standard anchors this KPI yet, so I'mBoard authors and maintains the definition — transparently labeled as editorial tier. See the ontology methodology for the published vs editorial tier system and the back-attribution workstream.
Rogue ID: finance.ga_payroll
Type: Currency
Domain: Finance
Definition
Fully-loaded compensation for finance, HR, operations, admin, and executive/admin allocation for the period. The people cost of running the company.
Formula
Fully-loaded G&A personnel cost for the period.Why it matters
Overhead that should grow slower than revenue as the company scales.
How to interpret
Track as a percentage of revenue; the ratio should trend down with scale.
Calculation policy
How an AI agent should compute this KPI from messy company data. Free-text rules consumed at reasoning time — not a deterministic DSL. The most common ways to get this wrong are listed under Common miscomputations.
Inclusion rules
- Fully-loaded compensation for finance, HR, operations, admin, and the executive/admin allocation (employees).
Exclusion rules
- Revenue-generating functions (sales, CS, marketing payroll) and R&D.
- Outsourced recruiter fees (finance.recruiting) and founder time allocated to building product (R&D).
Required inputs
- G&A roster with fully-loaded cost.
- The executive-time allocation method across functions.
Validation checks
- Track as a percentage of revenue — the ratio should trend down with scale; rolls into finance.total_ga.
Common miscomputations
- Dumping all unclassified headcount into G&A.
- Allocating founder engineering time to G&A instead of R&D.
Related KPIs
finance.total_ga
Source
I'mBoard editorial — authored and maintained by I'mBoard, first published 2026-04-01. No third-party standard is cited for this KPI; when one emerges, the definition is back-attributed and promoted to the published tier (a minor version bump). Read the ontology methodology for the published vs editorial tier system, attribution rules, and dispute process.
Stage relevance
| Company stage | Priority |
|---|---|
| Series A | Recommended |
| Series B | Recommended |
| Series C+ | Recommended |
| Public | Recommended |
Suggested for stages: Series A, Series B, Series C+, Public.
Default owning functions
- Finance
Machine-readable
- This KPI as JSON:
/api/ontology/finance/ga_payroll.json - All Finance KPIs:
/api/ontology/finance.json - Full catalog:
/api/ontology/index.json
FX Gain / Loss
Foreign-exchange gain (positive) or loss (negative) for the period from revaluing non-functional-currency balances and transactions. A SIGNED line; relevant for companies holding cash or transacting in multiple currencies. — Finance KPI, I'mBoard-authored (editorial tier).
Gross Burn Rate
Average monthly cash outflow before any inflows are netted off — essentially the company's monthly cost base in cash terms. Tracked alongside net burn because net burn alone can mask a structural problem when revenue is masking high cost. The board reads gross burn to understand the absolute cost commitment (mostly payroll, infra, COGS, sales spend) regardless of revenue mix. Common pitfall: founders often optimize the net burn narrative ("we cut burn 30%") via a one-time inflow without addressing the gross-burn cost base — the next quarter without that inflow re-exposes the underlying spend. Always present gross and net side-by-side. — Finance KPI, I'mBoard-authored (editorial tier).