New Client Contract Go / No-Go
Should I actually take this contract?
Get expected credit loss from Client Credit / Bad-Debt Exposure, then check this box to include it; left unchecked, Credit is shown as not evaluated, not passed by default.
- Margin: Pass — Contribution margin is 22.0%, your minimum is 20.0%.
- Cash: Fail — This contract requires $85,000 in starting cash; you have $60,000 available.
- Concentration: Pass — This client would become 28.0% of revenue; your ceiling is 35.0%.
Not evaluated: Credit.
Why this comes up
"Should I take this contract" is really several separate questions at once: does it clear margin, can you actually fund it, does it push your client mix somewhere risky, and (where you have the data) what's the credit exposure. Answering only one and assuming the rest follow is how a contract that looked obviously good on the first pass turns into a genuine problem months later.
How we calculated this
This engine doesn't recompute any math itself, it takes already-computed outputs from Assignment Profitability, New Contract Cash Requirement, Client Concentration Risk, and optionally Client Credit / Bad-Debt Exposure, compares each against your own threshold, and explains exactly why the scenario passes or fails on each criterion. A criterion you don't supply is shown as skipped, never silently treated as passing.
Worked example, using the calculator's own defaults: 22% contribution margin against a 20% minimum (pass), $85,000 required starting cash against $60,000 available reserve (fail), 28% projected concentration against a 35% ceiling (pass), credit not evaluated.
Margin: 22% >= 20% -> Pass Cash: $85,000 required > $60,000 available -> Fail Concentration: 28% <= 35% -> Pass Credit: not evaluated (unchecked) Overall: NO-GO (fails on cash alone, despite passing margin and concentration)
What this means
- A contract can genuinely fail on one criterion while passing the others comfortably; seeing that breakdown, not just a single blended verdict, is what makes the decision actionable, you know exactly which lever to pull if you still want to make the deal work.
- In the worked example, the deal fails purely on cash, if the agency could secure additional financing or negotiate a faster ramp, the same deal might clear on a second pass.
- Credit shown as "not evaluated" is a deliberate design choice, not a bug; a criterion you haven't entered is never silently treated as a pass, which would hide real risk.
Common mistakes
- Treating a pass on margin alone as sufficient justification to sign, without checking cash and concentration separately.
- Reading "not evaluated" on credit as equivalent to "acceptable," when it actually means the risk simply hasn't been assessed yet.
- Not re-running the check after negotiating better terms; a "no" on the first pass is information about what would need to change, not a final answer.
Frequently asked questions
What should I do when the verdict is NO-GO?
Look at which specific criterion failed and address it directly, negotiate a faster cash ramp, arrange financing sized to the deal, or reconsider the contract's terms, then re-run the check rather than treating NO-GO as final.
Why doesn't a missing criterion count as a pass?
Because silently defaulting an unassessed risk to "pass" would hide it rather than surface it. Showing it as "not evaluated" forces a deliberate decision about whether to assess it before signing.
Where do the individual criterion numbers come from?
Margin from Assignment Profitability, cash from New Contract Cash Requirement, concentration from Client Concentration Risk, and credit from Client Credit / Bad-Debt Exposure.
Limitations
Evaluates only the criteria you provide; a clean pass on the criteria entered does not mean every relevant risk was assessed, especially credit exposure if you leave it unchecked.
Next decision
Learn more
How to Evaluate a New Staffing Contract — the full decision chain, margin, cash, concentration, and account size, in the order it should run.