Finance & APAdvanced

Explain a month-end variance without hiding behind the numbers

Turns budget-versus-actual lines into explanations a non-finance reader can act on, and separates what you know from what you are inferring.

Works with Claude, ChatGPTUpdated 2026-09-27

When to use it

Use this when the board pack needs commentary and you have the numbers but not the narrative. It is built to keep the line between fact and hypothesis visible, which is the thing that gets blurred when commentary is written in a hurry.

Excerpt

For each variance over {{THRESHOLD}}, write:

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What to replace

{{VARIANCES}}: The budget versus actual lines, pasted from your report or as CSV.
{{KNOWN_CONTEXT}}: What you already know: a price rise, a delayed hire, a one-off cost.
{{READER}}: Who reads the commentary, e.g. "the board" or "department heads".
{{THRESHOLD}}: The size of variance worth explaining, e.g. "5% or 2 lakh, whichever is smaller".

How to use it

Give it the context you already have. Without it, everything comes back as a hypothesis, which is itself informative.
Chase the confirming report named under each hypothesis before the numbers go out.
Keep the labelling when you paste it into the pack. It is what makes the commentary trustworthy.

What to change

Set the threshold in your own currency and materiality terms.
Add prior-period actuals if the useful comparison is the trend rather than the budget.
For a cash-focused reader, ask for the cash impact rather than the P and L impact.

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