A recruitment report has to answer three things on one page: what happened this quarter, which cohorts can be judged yet, and what decision the team needs. That takes counts before percentages, graded and ungraded records shown separately, cohort ages, an included cost per signed franchise for the cohorts that have matured, rep capacity, and a short list of decisions with the evidence for each.
Most reports fail in one of two ways. Either they show only this month’s cost per lead, which says nothing about signings, or they show a cost per signed franchise for a cohort that has barely started, which says too much. Below is a complete fictional report, built section by section, with the reasoning for each block.
The full report is downloadable: O14-recruitment-report.html. Its Northfield costs, hours and outcomes are fictional; the staff-rate assumptions are researched. Northfield Inspections is an invented US home inspection franchisor.
1. The basis line goes first
Unit: signed franchise agreements, net of reversals · Cost: included = media + management + production and tools + source fees + rep hours x $35 loaded · Currency: USD · Cohort: first inquiry quarter · Cutoff: 30 Sep 2026 · Attribution: original source captured at entry; unknown shown as its own row; broker credit follows the broker agreement
The house default is logged rep hours x loaded rate. This report uses $35/hour as the base case and $50/hour as the high case: researched assumptions with stated limits, not SMF or client payroll data. If time logs are unavailable, label the known-staff-cost-pool allocation by graded inquiries as a fallback.
Nobody should have to ask what “cost” means. If a number on the page uses a different scope, it gets its own label.
2. Period activity: what happened in the quarter
| Line | Q3 2026 | Calculation |
|---|---|---|
| Media spend | $34,000 | Meta $24,000 + Google $10,000 |
| Management and production/tools | $10,500 | $8,500 + $2,000 |
| Portal fees | $5,000 | |
| Broker and referral fees paid | $0 | No broker or referral signing fell in Q3. A recorded zero |
| Rep hours, all cohorts | 566 h = $19,810 | 566 x $35 |
| Period included cost | $69,310 | |
| Signings (gross / reversals / net) | 6 / 0 / 6 | 3 from the Q1 cohort, 2 from Q2, 1 from late 2025 |
| Period ratio | $11,551.67 | $69,310 / 6 |
The period ratio is labeled as an activity measure because that’s all it is. Q3’s spend paid for Q3’s inquiries, and Q3’s signings came from people who inquired months earlier. Finance needs this view. It is not what Q3’s inquiries will eventually cost.
3. The matured cohort, by source
Q1 is the only cohort whose 180-day window is complete for every candidate (31 March to 30 September is 183 days).
| Source | Inquiries | Graded | Not yet graded | Qualified | Nurture | Disqualified | Included cost | Net signed | Open late stage | Included cost per signed franchise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meta | 260 | 248 | 12 | 37 | 61 | 150 | $28,900 | 3 | 4 | $9,633.33 |
| Google Search | 70 | 68 | 2 | 18 | 16 | 34 | $13,325 | 2 | 2 | $6,662.50 |
| Portal | 90 | 84 | 6 | 9 | 20 | 55 | $8,050 | 0 | 1 | not calculable |
| Broker | 12 | 12 | 0 | 7 | 3 | 2 | $50,700 | 2 | 1 | $25,350 |
| Referral | 8 | 8 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 1 | $2,280 | 1 | 0 | $2,280 |
| Unknown | 15 | 13 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 8 | $350 | 0 | 0 | not calculable |
| Total | 455 | 433 | 22 | 78 | 105 | 250 | $103,605 | 8 | 8 | $12,950.63 |
Three handling rules make this table honest:
- Graded plus not yet graded equals inquiries on every row. The 22 ungraded records are not counted as Disqualified.
- Zero and blank mean different things. Portal’s 0 signings is a recorded zero, so its cost per signed franchise reads “not calculable” rather than $0. A blank would mean “not reported” and would stop the calculation.
- Unknown keeps its own row, and its cost is a policy, not a measurement. Every channel invoice is charged to the platform row that billed it, even if some candidates that platform reached ended up with an unknown source. The unknown row’s $350 is only the 10 rep hours logged on those records, not a fully allocated cost of acquiring them, so don’t read it as the cheapest source. Unallocated spend is $0 this quarter and the rows sum to $103,605.
The method behind each column is in the sourcing scorecard.
4. Cohort maturity
| Cohort | Inquiries | Qualified | Not yet graded | Signed by day 90 | Signed by day 180 | Signed to cutoff | Open late stage | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-Q1 | 455 | 78 | 22 | 4 | 8 | 8 | 8 | Matured for 180-day comparison |
| 2026-Q2 | 491 | 78 | 32 | 3 | window ends 27 Dec | 3 | 12 | Compare at day 90 only |
| 2026-Q3 | 531 | 78 | 62 | window ends 29 Dec | not yet | 0 | 4 | Too young to judge |
This grid stops two mistakes. Q3 has zero signings, and that is expected at its age, not a failure. Q2 shows $26,830 per signed franchise so far ($80,490 / 3), but it is half-way through its window with 12 candidates still at a late stage, so the report doesn’t publish that figure as a result.
The only fair comparison right now is day 90: Q1 had 4 signings from the 78 candidates ever confirmed Qualified in the cohort, Q2 had 3 from 78. One agreement per signing candidate. The denominator is the population confirmed Qualified within 90 days of each person’s first inquiry, as in the sourcing scorecard; in this fictional dataset all 78 in each cohort were first confirmed Qualified by their individual day 90, and no Q1 Qualified grade changed before cutoff. Q2’s 180-day population can still grow, but later assessments do not change its day-90 denominator. A difference of one signing is not a trend, and the report says so.
Staff-rate sensitivity
| Measure | Base, $35/hour | High, $50/hour |
|---|---|---|
| Q3 period staff allocation, 566 hours across all cohorts | $19,810 | $28,300 |
| Q3 period included cost | $69,310 | $77,800 |
| Q3 period activity ratio, 6 signings | $11,551.67 | $12,966.67 |
| Q1 inquiry-cohort included cost, 273 logged hours | $103,605 | $107,700 |
| Q1 included cost per signed, 8 signings | $12,950.63 | $13,462.50 |
| Q2 inquiry-cohort included cost, 279 logged hours | $80,490 | $84,675 |
| Q2 cost per signed to cutoff, 3 signings, provisional | $26,830 | $28,225 |
| Q3 inquiry-cohort included cost, 226 logged hours, no signings | $57,410 | $60,800 |
The Q3 period and Q3 inquiry-cohort views use different hours and populations; do not substitute one for the other. No signings means the Q3 inquiry-cohort cost per signed is not calculable in either case. Rounding is to cents, half up. The rate change does not alter capacity, signing dates, grading, the zero/unknown rules or the three fictional decisions below. Download all source/cohort sensitivity rows.
5. Capacity
| Line | Q3 |
|---|---|
| Rep hours available (2 reps) | 600 |
| Rep hours logged | 566 (34 spare) |
| Qualified Q3 candidates with no first conversation at cutoff | 11 (oldest waiting 6 business days) |
| Rep hours per signed franchise, Q1 cohort | paid 37.0, broker 10.0, all sources 34.1 |
Capacity sits on the same page as cost because more spend buys more conversations, and the team is close to its limit.
6. Exceptions
| Issue | Effect on the numbers | Owner | Action | Review date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Form-to-CRM delivery failed 11 to 14 Aug | 23 accepted Meta form submissions in the owned delivery log had no CRM record by submission ID; all 23 backfilled and matched by ID on 19 Aug; 9 still not yet graded | Marketing ops | Grade the 9; add a daily match of owned accepted submissions to CRM records by submission ID; review Meta’s credited lead count separately | 15 Oct 2026 |
| 62 Q3 inquiries not yet graded | Q3 Qualified count is a floor, not final | Development lead | Clear backlog, oldest first | 15 Oct 2026 |
| Unknown source rose from 15 (Q1) to 25 (Q3) | Q3 source shares are less certain | Marketing ops | Check hidden source fields on the two new landing pages | 15 Oct 2026 |
Each exception names the numbers it affects. If the delivery failure had not been backfilled, the CRM would hold 23 fewer Meta inquiries than the owned delivery log shows as accepted, and the ID-level reconciliation in ad leads versus CRM would be the first job. Meta’s own credited lead count is a separate observation: it follows Meta’s attribution, so it can differ from the owned log for other reasons and can’t by itself prove or size a delivery failure.
7. Three decisions, each tied to evidence
- Hold Meta media at $8,000 a month for Q4. Don’t raise it. Evidence: 34 spare rep hours, 11 Qualified candidates waiting, and paid sources needing 37 rep hours per signing. More inquiries would land on a team with no time to call them. Revisit when the waiting queue is under 3 for four straight weeks or a third rep is approved.
- Keep the broker agreement, limited to the 5 secondary territories. Evidence: both Q1 broker signings came from secondary territories, where paid produced 3 of its 55 Qualified. At $25,350 per signed franchise, brokers sit above the fictional $20,000 ceiling, so no broker coverage in metros. Re-check when Q2 reaches day 180. The reasoning is worked through in brokers or your own ads.
- Hold portal spend flat at $5,000 a quarter until Q2 reaches day 180. Evidence: the Q1 portal cohort has 0 signings and 1 late-stage candidate after 180 days, so its cost per signed franchise is not calculable. Cutting now would act on one cohort with a case still open. Cut in January if Q2 also ends its window with 0 signings and no late-stage candidate.
Notice what isn’t on the list. Nobody scales Google because its Qualified rate beats Meta’s, and nobody cuts Meta because Q3 hasn’t signed. A higher Qualified rate on 18 people, or zero signings on a cohort a few weeks old, can’t carry a budget change. Each decision has a stated trigger for revisiting it, and each is an observation to check against the next cohort, not proof that the change caused anything.
Start here
Write section 1 for your own network, then build section 4. If you can’t fill the cohort maturity grid, because inquiry dates or signing dates aren’t linked to the same record, that’s the first thing to fix. Every other section depends on it.
Downloads: O14-recruitment-report.html (the complete one-page report) and O14-cohort-source-data.csv (all three cohorts by source, every cost line). The signing dates behind the maturity grid are in S11-signing-log.csv.
Related: Cost per signed franchise · Candidate sourcing scorecard · Qualifying franchise leads
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