> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.getnovaplan.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Glossary > Plain-language definitions of the FP&A and Novaplan terms you will meet across the product. If a term in the product or in a Nova answer is unfamiliar, find it here. Terms are grouped by where you meet them. ## Core Planning | Term | What it means | | - | - | | **Budget version** | A named container for one set of plan numbers, for example "2026 Budget" or "Rolling Forecast". Every figure in the product belongs to a version, so you can hold many plans side by side. | | **Live version** | The version you are actively editing. Most teams keep one live Rolling Forecast. | | **Locked version** | A frozen snapshot that can no longer be edited, used as a stable reference (for example an approved budget). | | **Archived version** | An old version kept for history, hidden from the main pickers. | | **Lock level** | How much of a version is frozen. It ranges from locking only external-facing data up to locking everything, including assumptions and rules. | | **Actuals** | What really happened, pulled from your GL and HRIS. | | **Budget** | The plan you committed to at the start of the period. | | **Forecast** | Your current best estimate, usually actuals for closed months plus a projection for the rest. | | **Scenario** | A what-if variation on a base plan (for example a slower-hiring case) that you can compare without changing the base. | | **Dimension** | An axis you slice numbers by: department, entity, account, product, channel, region, or period. | | **Base currency** | The single currency every figure is translated into so totals are summable. Native amounts are converted using FX rates. | ## Headcount | Term | What it means | | - | - | | **Fully loaded cost** | The true monthly cost of a person: base salary plus fringe, merit, bonus, commission, and recruiting fees. | | **Fringe** | Benefits and payroll taxes loaded onto base salary as a rate. | | **Merit** | A planned raise applied from a chosen effective month forward. | | **Open position** | A planned hire, backfill, or removal that is not yet a real employee. | | **Backfill** | Replacing someone who left. A position number keeps a stable identity for the seat, so a backfill does not count twice. | | **People snapshot** | Your current team as synced from the HRIS, with optional overrides. | | **Override** | A change to a person's attribute (title, department, memo) that does not alter the source HR data. | | **FTE** | Full-time equivalent. A half-time role is 0.5 FTE. | | **Direction-aware counting** | Open positions count by intent: an add increases headcount, a remove decreases it, and an update changes cost without changing the count. | ## Revenue and ARR | Term | What it means | | - | - | | **ARR** | Annual Recurring Revenue, the annualized value of active subscriptions. | | **CARR** | Contracted ARR, the annualized value of signed contracts at their booking date, before they go live. | | **Live ARR** | The portion of CARR that has activated and is now recognizing, after any onboarding or go-live delay. | | **Recognized revenue** | The revenue posted to the P\&L in a period, derived from the active ARR balance. | | **Stream** | A type of revenue: subscription, one-time bookings, usage, marketplace, or other income. Each forecasts differently. | | **Cohort** | A group of customers grouped by when they were acquired, used to study retention over time. | | **Activation curve** | The schedule that spreads new CARR into Live ARR over the months after a deal closes. | | **NDR** | Net Dollar Retention, revenue from a cohort this period versus a year ago, including expansion and churn. | | **GRR** | Gross Dollar Retention, the same idea but excluding expansion, so it can never exceed 100 percent. | | **LTV** | Lifetime Value, the total revenue a customer is expected to generate over their lifetime. | | **Pipeline weighting** | Multiplying an open deal by its stage probability so the forecast reflects likelihood, not just the full amount. | | **Driver-based forecasting** | Building revenue bottom up from levers like reps, quota, attainment, and churn rather than from a single number. | | **Renewal NDR** | The retention assumption applied to a cohort when it renews. | ## Reporting | Term | What it means | | - | - | | **Variance** | The difference between two figures, usually plan versus actual, shown in dollars and percent. | | **Waterfall (bridge)** | A chart that walks from a starting balance to an ending balance through each driver, so you can see what moved the number. | | **Comparison** | Putting any two versions side by side with the variance on every line. | | **Brief** | A finished, executive-ready write-up of a variance with a waterfall, drivers, and drill-downs. | | **Metric** | A defined, reusable number (a KPI) that the whole product computes the same way. | | **Pivot** | Reshaping a table so a dimension becomes columns, for example months across the top. | ## Data and Admin | Term | What it means | | - | - | | **Connector** | A live link to a source system such as HiBob, NetSuite, Salesforce, or Snowflake. | | **Dimension mapping** | Matching raw source values (a department name from HR) to your canonical hierarchy so every report agrees. | | **Curation** | The automatic step that turns raw ingested rows into clean, canonical records. | | **Pipeline freshness** | A health signal showing whether each feed synced on time, so a silent failure cannot hide for a month. | | **Field masking** | Hiding sensitive values (such as salary) from roles that should not see them, even in exports. | Cannot find a term? Ask Nova in the app. Nova reads this glossary, so it can define any of these terms in the context of your own numbers.