Travel & Entertainment
Cost of travel, meals, customer travel, and board travel for the period. Rolls up minor items; kept as one readable line. — 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.travel_entertainment
Type: Currency
Domain: Finance
Definition
Cost of travel, meals, customer travel, and board travel for the period. Rolls up minor items; kept as one readable line.
Formula
Travel & entertainment cost for the period.Why it matters
A discretionary line that is an early lever when tightening burn.
How to interpret
Read directionally; large moves usually reflect travel policy or event timing.
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
- Travel, lodging, meals, customer travel, and board travel for the period.
Exclusion rules
- Event-linked travel (finance.events_conferences) and relocation (recruiting / the hire's payroll).
- Client entertainment that is actually a marketing program.
Required inputs
- Expense-report travel-and-entertainment categorization.
Validation checks
- Discretionary — an early lever when tightening burn; read directionally; rolls into finance.total_ga.
Common miscomputations
- Double-counting event travel already captured in finance.events_conferences.
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/travel_entertainment.json - All Finance KPIs:
/api/ontology/finance.json - Full catalog:
/api/ontology/index.json
Unrestricted Cash
Cash that the company can freely deploy for any operational purpose — total bank balances minus any contractually restricted balances. This is the input most boards actually want when judging runway, because it strips out escrows, security deposits, and processor reserves that cannot be spent on payroll or vendors. The distinction matters more as the company adds enterprise contracts (deposit obligations), debt facilities (covenant balances), and payment processing volume (rolling reserves). Common pitfall: at early stage, restricted cash is often near zero so teams equate this with `finance.total_cash_in_bank` — track them separately from day one to avoid surprise reclassifications later. — Finance KPI, I'mBoard-authored (editorial tier).
Usage / Consumption Revenue
Recognized revenue tied to usage- or consumption-based pricing for the period (metered API calls, compute, seats-on-demand, overages). Separated from subscription revenue because it scales with customer activity rather than contracted commitments and is typically more volatile period to period. — Finance KPI, I'mBoard-authored (editorial tier).