METHODOLOGY
The grade measures the evidence, never the business.
Every PCI report carries a confidence grade: High, Medium, Low, or Impaired. It grades how firmly your numbers are supported, not how your business is doing. Finding more risks can never lower it; only thin evidence can.
Every figure carries its own confidence
During the diagnostic, each figure is marked exact, estimated, or unknown. Saying "I don't know" is a first-class answer: it is recorded as missing evidence, not scored as a zero.
Evidence-Backed percent
The share of confidence-graded fields marked exact. Estimated and imported figures never count as verified, so a diagnostic completed from spreadsheet imports can be complete without claiming verification.
THE FOUR GRADES
The Confidence Ladder
Few unknowns, a complete diagnostic, and no material evidence-quality gaps.
Figures are firm enough to act on directly.
Solid coverage with a meaningful estimated or imported share, or several distinct evidence-quality gaps in how the books are kept (expense opacity, no single source of truth, manual reconciliation bridges). Those gaps temper a grade to Medium, never lower.
Directionally reliable; verify the specific figures you plan to act on.
A high unknown share or a substantially incomplete diagnostic. Never findings about the business.
Treat dollar figures as hypotheses to confirm against your books.
Unknowns crossing roughly a third of the graded fields.
The assessment's first job becomes showing you where evidence is missing; restoring visibility is finding one.
WHY IT MATTERS
Why the grade matters
It travels with every number
The report's evidence table carries the grade, and your agents inherit a server-derived data confidence from the same diagnostic.
It cannot be inflated
The grade is computed from the evidence mix by fixed rules, not from anyone's judgment of the business.
It protects honest operators
Declining to guess is recorded truthfully. An operator who marks a figure unknown gets an honest grade instead of a fabricated number.
It tells you what to fix first
A Low or Impaired grade is itself a diagnosis: the fastest path to a firmer assessment is better visibility, and the report names which fields are thin.