# Variance tiers: on plan, approaching, breached

Source: https://docs.tightly.io/help/commitments/variance-tiers
Reviewed: 2026-09-07

## What it is

A variance tier is how far a declared number stands from its declaration this week, said as one standing word and one dot beside it. Three tiers carry a judgement. On plan, which the face prints as holding: measured and inside the declaration. Approaching, which the face prints as watch: not yet a breach, but most of the room has been used. Breached: outside the declared band and flagged by the weekly verdict. A fourth word, not scored, says the number could not be judged, and it is never a green. Amber is spent on breached alone: watch's dot is hollow and not scored's is dashed, so neither carries a colour.

## How Tightly decides it

Every tier is read off the recorded verdict for the week, never re-measured. Breached is a verdict of needs review or urgent. Watch has two honest sources: a recorded deviation the money floor held below the worklist, or an on track verdict whose receipt shows most of the declared band consumed. Holding is on track with room to spare.

The watch thresholds are stated and taken only from figures the verdict already carries. For a boxed sell-through pace, four fifths of the declared band spent. For a rolling pace, most of the way to the share of the scope outside the corridor that becomes a review. For the chase reserve, open to commit fallen to a fifth of the reserve. For the buy envelope, the surplus fallen to a fifth of the envelope. The availability floor and the margin floor breach at the floor itself and carry no band, so they reach watch only through a recorded deviation, never through a proximity Tightly would have to invent.

The band on a boxed pace is relative to the target: the declared tolerance as a share of the week's glidepath target, so a 30% tolerance on a 50% target is 15 points either way. Where no tolerance was declared, the engine's own default of 30% judges the week, and the record says which judged it; Declare sends no tolerance of its own, so a commitment declared there is judged on the default. One week outside the band is needs review. A pace, availability, margin or terminal stock breach that runs three weeks in a row becomes urgent, and the run is carried forward from the prior week's record. Some become urgent at once: availability more than five points under its floor, margin whose four-week rolling mean is under the floor, and an envelope or reserve breach, which is a fact from the ladder rather than a drift. A breach whose money is under a thousand dollars is recorded as watch rather than put on a list. Direction travels with the tier: above or below the declaration.

## The words on the face

| Word | Dot | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| holding | filled | Inside the declaration, comfortably |
| watch | hollow | Approaching the edge, or a deviation held below the worklist |
| breached | attention | Outside the band and flagged this week |
| not scored | dashed | Could not be judged; never a green |
| Kept, Missed, Not scored | none | At close, on Hindsight; the season is over, so nothing is at risk any more |

On This week the same record prints the verdict's own words: on track, watch, needs review, urgent, not measured, not applicable yet. On All commitments a verdict that needs action puts the attention dot on the row's status. Level, on This week, is a different word: before a pace week is scored, the head says the season sold level with last year's same weeks when it sits within 2% of them either way.

## What you can do about it

A watch is a heads-up and asks for nothing. In the room, the next action ranks breached numbers before watched ones and opens the page that answers each: the buying budget on Open to buy for the envelope or the reserve, replenishment in season or supply before it for the availability floor, trading in season or the buy before it for the pace (replenishment on a rolling commitment), and pricing in season or the buy before it for the margin floor. Amend is there when the declaration itself was wrong. Nothing here changes the declaration by itself.

## Glossary line

A variance tier is how far a declared number stands from its declaration this week: holding, watch or breached, with not scored where it could not be judged; amber marks breached alone.