MA-E4 — Two customer cohorts share one paid service team

Situation: A proposed cohort appears to contribute money, but it will share capacity and payment dates with an existing cohort.
Question: What does adding it change after their demands are combined, and can the work and payments be met?
First useful result or blocker: A joint resource account, the new cohort’s future monetary difference and the whole dated cash position, with unresolved capacity or later flows kept visible.
Start with: MA.8 - Account for Customer and Product Economics Over Time when population or time is unclear. Use adequate supplied cohort quantities directly, then obtain missing resource and supply relationships through MA.1–2.
Stop or return: OPS.14 uses feasible future consequences for the operating comparison. An unknown obligation returns to FDM, a funding question to the relevant financial practice, and a sufficient supported account can finish the accounting request.

Put both populations into the same calendar. In this separate teaching case, the supplied active-customer quantities for months 2–4 are 80, 60 and 45 for the existing cohort, and 40, 20 and 10 for the proposed cohort. They are conditional scenario inputs, with no fitted retention model claimed. MA.8 explains how to obtain the calendar quantities from cohort age when they are not already supplied.

Construct the shared resource demand. Each cohort requires two setup hours per month plus 0.25 qualified service hour per active customer. The cohorts share 26 usable hours for an unchanged monthly payment of 240. One further nine-hour block can be obtained in each month for 180, paid at that month’s start. Scheduling is supplied as feasible whenever the demands fit those quantities.

Calendar month	Existing cohort hours	Proposed cohort hours	Joint demand	Additional block needed
2	2 + 80 × 0.25 = 22	2 + 40 × 0.25 = 12	34	One
3	2 + 60 × 0.25 = 17	2 + 20 × 0.25 = 7	24	None
4	2 + 45 × 0.25 = 13.25	2 + 10 × 0.25 = 4.5	17.75	None

Each cohort would fit the basic capacity alone, but their month-2 total requires the extra block. Both setups remain because the supplied work requires them. A proposed shared setup needs an operating basis before either is removed. The payment of 240 is for the common supply arrangement and appears once in the whole account.

Distinguish the future difference from assigned and historical amounts. The proposed cohort costs 600 to acquire before month 2. It pays 3 per active customer for service at month start and receives 15 per active customer at month end. Receipts total 15 × (40 + 20 + 10) = 1,050 and direct service payments total 3 × 70 = 210. The added capacity payment is 180, so the future difference is 1,050 − 210 − 180 − 600 = 60, with other flows unchanged.

The existing cohort’s acquisition payment of 2,000 is historical. A report assigns eight of team cost per active customer to the new cohort, totaling 560 over these months. MA.3 can explain that assignment; it is not another payment on top of the actual supply arrangements. The +60 concerns only this three-month alternative under the supplied conditions. Later flows and the responsible decision criteria remain outside that calculation.

Restore the whole cash position at each payment date. Without the new cohort, 900 would be available at every relevant date after all existing receipts and obligations, including the unchanged team payment. Acquisition reduces that position to 300. Add the new flows cumulatively to this baseline:

Date	Additional payment or receipt at this date	Whole cash position
Before month 2: acquisition	−600	300
Month 2 start: service and block	−120 − 180	0
Month 2 end: receipts	+600	600
Month 3 start: service	−60	540
Month 3 end: receipts	+300	840
Month 4 start: service	−30	810
Month 4 end: receipts	+150	960

Thus the positive difference coexists with zero cash buffer at the month-2 start. No unchanged payment is subtracted again after it has entered the baseline. MA.4 supplies a needed reconciliation to reported results, which can recognize amounts at different times.

Reopen only the changed condition and its consequences. Suppose evidence now bounds service effort for each active customer between 0.25 and 0.30 hour, without establishing one common rate for all customers. Add these individual bounds while keeping both setups. Joint demand is 34–40, 24–28 and 17.75–20.5 hours. Month 2 may exceed the maximum supplied 35; month 3 may need the extra block above 26; month 4 fits.

Obtain only the aggregate information that can resolve those thresholds, or a feasible revised operating arrangement. Precise measurement of every customer’s effort is unnecessary if a supported aggregate bound settles the question. For a feasible month-2 branch, the future difference remains 60 when month 3 fits the basic supply, or becomes −120 when month 3 also needs its 180 block. The month-2 receipts remain conditional while service feasibility is unresolved. Do not invent a second block or promise unchanged receipts for work that cannot be performed.

Constructing the cohort hours performs part of constructing this joint account. The combined capacity, dates and remaining uncertainty determine whether the whole account can be used, even when every local multiplication is correct.