The program-side view, how a reviewer codes reasons for declining introductions, is set out in the rejection reasons study. This page covers the fund's side: what a platform team keeps about companies that did not go forward, and what it deliberately leaves out.
Four endings that a decline report must not blend
"Declined" gets used for four different events. Each has a different decider and a different meaning for the company.
| Ending | What happened | Who decided | Does it judge the company? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ineligible at screen | A published fit fact failed before any introduction: size, history, rights, location or language | The fund's own screen | No; it is a dated fact with a trigger that can change it |
| Not credited | Duplicate review found an earlier application, relationship or valid introduction; any earlier lead, account or email counts | SourceX, under the program terms | No; the company may still proceed with SourceX |
| Withdrawn | The CEO, or the relationship owner, chose not to go ahead | The company or the relationship owner | No; it is a choice, logged without commentary |
| Declined in review | SourceX decided not to proceed, for example because the records did not match a current program | SourceX | Only for now; another program may suit the company later even though this one did not |
Population. Every company the fund entered on its screen during one quarter, one row per company. Reporting period. Endings are dated when their source records them, and the whole cohort is read on one cutoff date. Denominator. All companies in the cohort, including those credited and those still open; a decline rate computed only over closed rows overstates how often things go wrong.
Two facts limit what any fund can know. Partners never receive access to other partners' records, applicant documents or confidential buyer information, so the reason you hold is the reason you were given. And the rewards page commits that when a reward is canceled because a referral turns out to be ineligible, the reason is always recorded, which gives the log a source to cite rather than a guess. A partner's view of one declined case is covered in understanding why a referral was declined.
A reason taxonomy that stores the least it can
Ten codes cover the endings above. Each names its source, so nobody mistakes a fund's inference for SourceX's decision, and each carries the plain words the relationship owner can use with the founder.
| Code | Ending | Reason family | Source of the reason | Revisit trigger | Words for the founder |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F1 | Ineligible at screen | Full-time headcount at peak below 50, contractors excluded | The CEO's own answer, via the relationship owner | Full-time headcount passes 50 | "Not yet a fit on size" |
| F2 | Ineligible at screen | Operating history too short or undocumented | The fund's screen | Records span more years | "Too early for this program" |
| F3 | Ineligible at screen | Location, or language below the 70% English rule where it applies | The fund's screen | A change in operations | "Outside the current geography" |
| F4 | Ineligible at screen | The records belong to clients | Metadata conversation | The company builds its own records of this kind | "The records are not theirs to license" |
| C1 | Not credited | SourceX already knew the company | The portal | None needed | "SourceX was already in touch" |
| W1 | Withdrawn | The CEO declined or paused | The relationship owner's dated note, no quotes | The CEO raises it again | "They chose not to go ahead" |
| W2 | Withdrawn | The relationship owner chose not to ask | The fund's log | The relationship changes | "Not ours to raise now" |
| R1 | Declined in review | No match with a current program | The portal or a SourceX message | Program criteria change | "Not a match for current programs" |
| R2 | Declined in review | Another reason, in SourceX's own words | The portal or a SourceX message | As stated | Repeat SourceX's wording, nothing added |
| U | Any | No reason shared | None | Ask once, then leave it | "No reason was given" |
The row itself. Six fields do the work, and the company name is not one of them.
| Keep in the shared log | Leave out of every log |
|---|---|
| Internal key, such as D-26Q3-04; the name-to-key map stays with one named person | The company's name in any shared sheet |
| Stage reached, with the cohort quarter | The CEO's words, tone or reasons in their own phrasing |
| Reason code, from the taxonomy above | Exact headcount, revenue or other figures; pass or fail is enough |
| Source of the reason, with the date it was recorded | Descriptions of records or systems beyond what the code says |
| Revisit trigger | Anything learned from board packs or information rights |
| Delete-by date | SourceX messages pasted in, and guesses about why SourceX decided |
The UK Information Commissioner's Office describes the data minimisation principle as holding personal data that is adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary for the purpose, and expects organisations to review what they hold periodically and delete what they no longer need. A note about a CEO's hesitation is personal data; much of the rest is business information that still arrived in confidence. The six fields above serve one purpose, learning to screen and route better, and nothing in them would embarrass the founder if they read it. Confidentiality duties under the signed SourceX Channel Partner Agreement apply on top; the program terms say that agreement governs confidentiality.
Delete-by rule (this page's method). Delete a row when its revisit trigger fires and the company is screened again, or two years after the cohort quarter closes, whichever comes first. Keep the aggregate counts.
One quarter's endings, logged and reported (Illustrative)
Illustrative. A fund platform team screened 24 generic companies in one quarter; the codes, keys and counts are invented.
Six rows from the log.
| Key | Last stage reached | Code | Source | Revisit trigger | Delete by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D-26Q3-02 | Screen | F1 | The CEO's answer, via the relationship owner | Full-time headcount passes 50 | 2028-09-30 |
| D-26Q3-05 | Screen | F4 | Metadata conversation | Own records of this kind | 2028-09-30 |
| D-26Q3-09 | Permission asked | W1 | Relationship owner's note | The CEO raises it again | 2028-09-30 |
| D-26Q3-11 | Introduced | C1 | Portal | None needed | 2028-09-30 |
| D-26Q3-14 | Credited | R1 | Portal | Program criteria change | 2028-09-30 |
| D-26Q3-17 | Screen | F3 | Metadata conversation | A change in operations | 2028-09-30 |
The report that leaves the platform team. Ending families always appear with their counts. A family is broken into codes only when every code in it holds at least 3 companies, so no row can be traced back to one business.
| Ending family | Companies (of 24) | Codes shown? |
|---|---|---|
| Ineligible at screen | 7 | No: F1 3, F2 1, F3 1, F4 2 stay internal |
| Withdrawn | 4 | No: W1 3, W2 1 stay internal |
| Not credited | 2 | Family only |
| Declined in review | 2 | Family only |
| Credited, still in progress | 6 | Not an ending |
| Open at cutoff | 3 | Not an ending |
Two lessons come out of this quarter without naming anyone. Seven of 24 companies ended at the fund's own screen, before anyone contacted a CEO, which is the screen doing its job. And 2 of the 13 introduced companies were already known to SourceX, so from next quarter the relationship owner asks the CEO whether the company has been in touch with SourceX before the link goes out; what happens when two partners introduce the same company explains the duplicate path.
Keeping counts honest when cases are still open
- An ending is final only when its source says so. The portal settles C1 and R codes, the relationship owner's note settles W codes and the fund's screen settles F codes.
- Open is not an ending. The three open companies stay in the denominator and out of every decline count.
- Returning companies get a new row. A company re-screened after its trigger fires starts again in the later cohort, and combined totals count it once.
- Groups count once for the cap. For the reward cap, a parent and every subsidiary in its group are treated as a single company. Whether a sister company's earlier contact with SourceX affects credit is not settled in the published terms; SourceX decides it in duplicate review, so log what the portal shows.
- Later cancellations move a row. If a reward is canceled because the referral turns out to be ineligible, take the recorded reason from SourceX, recode the row and keep the original date.
- Unknown stays unknown. A row with code U is not quietly recoded from gossip; the question about well-documented companies that are still declined shows how many reasons sit outside a partner's view.
Telling the founder, and keeping the log out of deal files
The relationship owner tells the CEO what happened in the program's own words, offers the revisit trigger where one exists and adds no commentary. A founder who hears "not yet a fit on size; worth another look past 50 full-time employees" has been told something useful. A founder who hears "they rejected you" has been told something false. For harder conversations, explaining a mandate rejection without closing the relationship gives wording.
Keep the decline log out of investment files. An ending in a data-licensing program says nothing about a company's prospects as an investment, and the facts behind it reached the platform team through a relationship, not through diligence. Store the log apart from the deal CRM, limit it to the platform team and keep the key map with one person.
What the decline log teaches, without counting lost rewards
Never total "rewards lost to declines". None were earned: a reward exists only after SourceX has paid the company and the payment conditions are met, so an ending removes a possibility, not income, and annualizing that possibility manufactures a loss that never existed. Track instead what the log can prove: the share of endings caught at the fund's own screen, the share of introduced companies SourceX already knew, and how many ineligible rows came back when their trigger fired.
Methods note and the limits of a respectful log
Methods note. The endings and codes are built from the SourceX program terms (Version 2026-10-22.2, since replaced by version 2026-11-04), the rewards page and the who-qualifies page, checked 2026-10-26, and the minimisation rule from the ICO's guidance. The quarter is invented to show the counting. The log measures how a fund's screened companies ended and who decided; it does not measure record quality, demand or what any license would have paid, and SourceX has not published decline-reason figures for this program.
The limits:
- Coarse reasons. A portal reason can be short, and code U will never be empty.
- Suppression costs insight. With fewer than 3 companies per code, small quarters show only family totals. Pool several quarters before breaking codes out.
- Reported, not verified. A W1 row records what the relationship owner was told, not the CEO's real reasons.
- Deletion loses history. After the delete-by date only counts survive, so record each quarter's lessons in the report itself.
- Moving criteria. SourceX applies each program's own criteria, so an R1 ending from one quarter can be a fit later.
Screening that prevents avoidable endings
Most F codes are avoidable with a short metadata conversation before anyone approaches a CEO. Check that full-time headcount reached 50+ at peak without counting contractors, that the operating history is documented, that the rights to the records are the company's own rather than its clients', and that there is an authorized contact. Companies in the U.S., Canada and the EU qualify, as do companies in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, South Africa, Latin America, the UAE and Saudi Arabia when at least 70% of the data is in English. The CEO is the person who authorizes a licensing discussion and signs for the company, and an introduction made without the decision maker's knowledge is usually not a fit.
Questions stay descriptive (record types, rough volume, years covered, the system and its administrator); no one asks for files, samples or logins. What only SourceX's review can answer, whether the records match a current program and whether contracts limit their reuse, is why R codes exist at all. Anyone who submits must have signed the Channel Partner Agreement first; a partner who signed the version titled "Channel Partner Non-Circumvention and Non-Disclosure Agreement" remains bound by it as signed. More measurement pages sit in the guides hub.
Next step
Refer a company. No cap on rewards. Default reward on a company's first qualifying transaction: the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap; further qualifying transactions first agreed within 12 months of the first Closing pay 15%. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, including the USD 100,000 Minimum Transaction, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
Once your screen catches the avoidable endings before a CEO is ever asked, register for a partner link, check each remaining company against who qualifies and read the program terms on duplicates before the first introduction.
Keeping a respectful decline log is referral housekeeping; evaluating SourceX as a company to invest in is a separate decision, supported by investor materials available on request through the SourceX investor overview.
This article is for information only and is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy securities. Any offering by SourceX is made only to verified accredited investors through its offering documents.