The Customer Touch Points vs Sales Dollars report gives us an insight into the different ways in which Users can link contacts and companies in the system. In our various Activity lists in the system, the system automatically rolls-up activities from the individual level to the company level, so that the Company Activity list shows all items that were directly linked to the company as well as those that were linked to individuals at the company. This roll-up provides an easy way to see an overview of everything going on within the company.
The roll-up makes it unnecessary to link a journal to both the individual interacted with at the company and the company itself -- that linking is intrinsic from the perspective of the Activity list. However, it is still common practice for Users to do this "double-linking". Since this is the case, it is necessary for our reports to take this into account, in order to provide the expected output when counting up things like "touch points".
This is an obvious example of when a company policy and practice should be discussed and put into place so that all Users at your company are entering and linking their entries in the same way. Consistency of input will result in easier and more accurate reporting on the output.
The Metric parameter on the Customer Touch Points vs Sales Dollars report serves the purpose of allowing the User control of how to total up linked contacts, based on how those contacts and companies are linked in their system.