Documentation
How to get a twin working and read what comes out
Six pages on using the software and four on the thinking behind it. No page here sells anything. If something is missing or only half built, it is named as such.
Written against the current version of the application. Where behaviour depends on a setting, the setting is named.
Start here, in this order
About forty minutes end to end if you have a profit and loss and a customer list to hand. Less if you use the worked example first.
- 01
Make a twin and load the worked example
Harborline Components is an invented contract manufacturer that comes with every account. Loading it takes a second and gives you a fully populated twin to poke at before any of your own numbers go anywhere.
- 02
Upload three files against your own twin
A profit and loss, a customer list with revenue per account, and whatever you have on competitors. Three files gets the readiness score out of the red.
- 03
Rebuild, then read the ledger before you read the answer
The ledger tells you how much of the model is standing on industry defaults. That number governs how much weight the first run deserves.
- 04
Run the price scenario and read the brief top to bottom
Then replace the top default in the ledger with something you know, and run it again. Watch the band, not the median.
Using the software
The thinking behind it
Read these if you want to know whether to believe the output, which is a better question than how to produce more of it.
While you are using it
The questions people ask in the first hour
The readiness score will not move, and I have uploaded four files
Readiness counts kinds of document, not files. Four profit and loss statements are one kind. The What to upload screen lists the thirteen kinds in the order they are worth sending and marks the ones you already have, so send the next unmarked one rather than more of the same.
A number in the ledger is wrong and it keeps coming back
Change it on the ledger and it is locked, which means the next rebuild leaves it alone. A number that changes back was not saved, which is worth reporting. A number that changes back after somebody else rebuilds it was probably unlocked by them, and the record on the overview says who.
Two scenarios disagree and both look right
Run them through Compare rather than reading two briefs. A comparison runs them against one baseline on one set of seeds, which is the only way two answers can be put side by side fairly. Two separately run scenarios are two different worlds and the difference between them includes the noise.
The band is so wide the answer is useless
That is the answer, and it is worth more than a narrow band would be. Open the analysis and look at what the width is standing on. If the widest contributor is an industry default, the band is a statement about what you have not uploaded rather than about how uncertain your business is, and one document closes it.
A lever I moved did nothing at all
Some levers act on a number your ledger holds at zero. A rate rise on a company with no debt is not a small effect, it is no effect, and the run says so in as many words rather than returning a quiet zero.
A sweep is taking a long time
It runs in slices, writes down every point as it finishes it, and survives you closing the tab. The form tells you how many simulations you asked for before it starts, which is the number to look at: steps times steps times replications, and a two lever grid multiplies.
It gave me a different answer than last month
It tells you when that happens. Every analysis is checked against the ones already stored on the same twin, and an answer that reverses an earlier one is reported as a disagreement with the date of the earlier one, which stays where it is so the two can be read next to each other.
Adjacent pages that answer documentation questions
If a page here disagrees with the software, the software is right and the page is a bug. Say so on the contact form and it gets fixed in the next release.
The fastest way through all of this is the worked example
It is an invented contract manufacturer with one customer at 18 percent of revenue and a price unchanged since 2023. Every scenario is already set up on it, so you can read a real brief before you upload anything.