> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.beaconrevenue.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Connect your tools

> What Beacon reads, what each connection unlocks, what happens when one is missing, and what connecting actually involves.

Beacon doesn't ask you to move your data anywhere. It reads the systems you already run and builds one agreed set of numbers from what's there.

This page is the reference version: which tools, what each one turns on, and what stays off without it. For the shorter story, see [how connecting works](https://beacon-web-prototype.vercel.app/integrations) on the main site.

## Day one is billing

Billing is the only source Beacon requires. It is also enough on its own.

Connect it and you have recurring revenue, every customer's revenue history, churn and retention, and a first forecast — the same day, with no modelling work in between. Everything you connect afterwards deepens that picture rather than delaying it.

**Billing & subscriptions** — Stripe, Chargebee, Recurly, Maxio, Zuora. Usage-based: Stripe Billing, Orb, Metronome.

<Note>
  Until billing is connected, nothing else turns on. That's deliberate: every other figure Beacon produces is anchored to what was actually charged, so there is no honest way to show them first.
</Note>

## What completes the picture

Billing tells you what happened once someone became a customer. Three more sources tell you how they arrived, what winning them cost, and what the business actually earned.

| Source                   | What it turns on                                                                                      | What stays off without it                                     |
| ------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Billing** *(required)* | Recurring revenue, the four movements behind every change, retention and churn curves, lifetime value | Everything                                                    |
| **CRM**                  | Pipeline and win rates, where deals stall, which marketing became revenue, both handoffs              | The story starts at the invoice — no pipeline, no attribution |
| **Accounting**           | Gross margin, the fully-loaded cost of winning a customer, payback period                             | Unit economics run on ad spend alone — no margin, no payback  |
| **Marketing & ads**      | First touch, channel spend, cost per customer by channel                                              | The story starts at the pipeline — spend has no home          |

Those four are typically five or six actual connections, and together they carry the whole journey from first touch to renewal with real unit economics attached.

## The rest of the list

None of these are required. Each sharpens something Beacon can already estimate without it — and the behavioural sources are what turn description into prediction.

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Product usage">
    Amplitude, Mixpanel, PostHog, Pendo, Heap; Segment as a source of record.

    **Turns on:** what customers actually do — the strongest single signal behind churn risk and deal odds. **Without it:** engagement is inferred from billing and CRM activity. Workable, and materially less early.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Support and customer success">
    Zendesk, Intercom, Front, Help Scout; Gainsight, Vitally, Catalyst, Planhat.

    **Turns on:** health, ticket volume and sentiment — renewal risk seen before the renewal. **Without it:** risk is read from payment behaviour and usage instead.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Contracts">
    Your CLM or contract store, where you keep signed terms.

    **Turns on:** real contract values, terms and renewal dates, plus what's drafted, in signature and signed. **Without it:** renewal timing comes from billing, which misses anything agreed but not yet invoiced.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Banking and payments">
    Stripe, Brex, Ramp, Mercury, Plaid.

    **Turns on:** balances and transactions from the bank, so cash timing is accurate to the day. **Without it:** revenue is measured as invoiced. Fine for most questions, not for cash planning.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="People and payroll">
    BambooHR, Rippling, HiBob, Workday, Personio. Payroll: Gusto, ADP, Paychex, Deel.

    **Turns on:** headcount and hiring plan, so growth plans are checked against the team you'll actually have. **Without it:** workforce planning stays off. Payroll is always optional — asked once, never required.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Web analytics">
    GA4, PostHog.

    **Turns on:** the first steps of a journey, so lifecycles start at genuine first touch rather than at the form fill. **Without it:** the journey starts later, and early-stage channel effects are harder to see.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Calendar">
    Google Calendar, Microsoft 365.

    **Turns on:** meeting context for briefings — titles, agendas, times and attendees. Nothing else, ever. **Without it:** meeting preparation isn't available. No other figure depends on it.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="External enrichment">
    Firmographics, funding rounds and hiring signals on accounts and prospects.

    **Turns on:** outside context on who your customers are, beyond what your own systems know. **Without it:** segments are built from your data alone — still real, with less outside signal.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Data warehouse">
    BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift, Databricks.

    **Turns on:** relevant only at larger volumes, or when your data already lives there. **Without it:** nothing — until you outgrow the standard setup, at which point Beacon says so rather than degrading quietly.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## How a source connects

What Beacon needs is the data arriving complete, not a particular vendor's plug-in. Sources connect by the highest rung available:

<Steps>
  <Step title="A direct connector, where one exists">
    The common case for billing and CRM. Minutes, and it stays current on its own.
  </Step>

  <Step title="An API sync, where the tool has an interface">
    Same result, slightly more setup.
  </Step>

  <Step title="A scheduled export, where it doesn't">
    A daily or weekly file. Common for accounting and some ad platforms.
  </Step>

  <Step title="A guided form, for small and slow-moving data">
    Things like a hiring plan, which no system holds properly anyway.
  </Step>
</Steps>

**However a source arrives, every screen states how fresh it actually is.** A weekly export is never presented as a live figure.

## Your systems keep their own names

A customer in billing, a company in the CRM and a job in the ledger are usually the same organisation spelled three ways. Beacon reads each tool's own fields, maps them into one shared vocabulary as it connects, and matches the records that describe the same company.

Nothing in your systems is renamed, rewritten or moved.

## What connecting involves

You authenticate **inside the source tool's own login screen** — in Stripe, in HubSpot, in Xero. Beacon never asks for, stores, or completes a login, and you can withdraw access from the same place at any time.

Minutes per source. Billing first; the rest whenever you're ready.

## When a source is missing

Beacon does not guess, and it does not quietly carry on.

If a source isn't connected, or stops responding, the figures that depend on it are **named as unavailable, with the reason and what would restore them.** Disconnect a source and the parts that depended on it switch off and say why.

Nothing is ever filled in with a number that looks plausible.

For what Beacon does and does not do with what it reads, see [Boundaries](/boundaries).