The rule
Forward reads feed the forecast; they never sit beside it. A capacity read, an economics read or a journey read contributes to the forecast or informs it. Not one of them publishes a rival number for the same period. A proposal is never saved as a figure. Answers to “what would it take” are worked out on request and stored nowhere, so nothing can quietly harden into an alternative. See Proposals, not actions. Nothing recomputes what another part owns. A read that spans several parts of the business points at each part’s published figure. It does not recalculate them on the way past and arrive at a different total. A disagreement is raised, not averaged. Where two parts imply different answers, Beacon surfaces the difference. It does not reconcile them into a third number that matches neither.Why this is worth a rule
A second forecast is not a second opinion — it is a meeting. Once two numbers exist for the same period, every conversation that should be about the business becomes a conversation about which number is right, and the one that gets quoted is usually the one that suits the argument. The cost of the rule is real and worth naming: Beacon will sometimes decline to give you a single figure where a rival forecast would happily produce one. Verify: ask for a forward-looking read on any period that already has a forecast. It will point at that forecast rather than return a different number for the same period.Related
Sealed and live figures
What settles a figure, and when.
Forecast confidence
How much weight a forecast period carries.
What Beacon does not decide
The conclusions Beacon declines to draw.