Help and Guide

A short guide to getting the most out of this local planning tool.

Getting started

A suggested order for a first pass through the model.

1. Start with Assumptions

Open /assumptions and pick a starting scenario (Conservative, Expected or Upside), or load the Australian utility preset for the merchant profile.

Open

2. Review the merchant case

Open Merchant ROI to see the quantified benefit, ROI multiple and payback period for the chosen merchant profile.

Open

3. Check founder economics

Open Founder Model to review Sparelane's own contribution margin, transaction economics and break-even merchant count.

Open

4. Explore pricing

Use the Pricing Simulator to compare packages and pricing models against thresholds before changing the shared model.

Open

5. Build the investor forecast

Open Investor Forecast for the five-year growth, revenue, EBITDA, cash and valuation picture.

Open

6. Keep evidence current

Log sources and confidence for material assumptions in the Research Register — this feeds directly into model health.

Open

Local storage and backups

Everything in this tool lives in your browser only.

The model, research register and pricing workspace are saved to this browser's local storage automatically as you edit. Nothing is sent to a server.
Clearing browser storage, using a different browser, or using private/incognito mode will not have your saved model. Export a backup regularly.
Use Export full model in the header to download a single JSON backup covering assumptions, the research register and (if present) the pricing workspace.
Use Import backup to restore from a previously exported file. This replaces the current model and marks the scenario as Custom.
Each workspace (Merchant ROI, Founder Model, Pricing, Forecast, Research Register) also supports its own focused JSON export/import for sharing a single analysis.

Model health

A quick signal for whether the current assumptions and outputs look sound.

The Model health button in the header shows a status of Healthy, Attention required or Invalid, based on assumption validity, payment/recovery mix totals, forecast-array completeness, calculated-output sanity checks and Research Register coverage for critical assumptions. Open it to see each issue with a description and a link to the relevant workspace.

If the saved local model fails to load at all (for example after a corrupted browser storage entry), a recovery banner appears with options to reset to the default Expected scenario or import a previous backup.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about scope and limitations.

Is this financial or investment advice?

No. This is an internal founder-planning tool. All figures are illustrative estimates based on the assumptions you enter, not accounting, tax, legal or investment advice.

Where is my data stored?

In this browser's local storage only. See Methodology for schema and versioning details.

Can I share a scenario with someone else?

Yes — export a full model backup or a workspace-specific export and send the JSON file. The recipient can import it into their own browser.