variance-commentary

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by anthropic · part of anthropics/financial-services

Write flux commentary for every P&L and balance-sheet line over threshold — current vs prior period and vs budget, with the driver explained from underlying…

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🧩 One of 7 skills in the anthropics/financial-services package — works on its own, and pairs well with its siblings.

Write flux commentary for every P&L and balance-sheet line over threshold — current vs prior period and vs budget, with the driver explained from underlying…

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name: variance-commentary description: Write flux commentary for every P&L and balance-sheet line over threshold — current vs prior period and vs budget, with the driver explained from underlying activity. Use for the month-end close package and management reporting.

Variance commentary

Given current-period actuals, prior-period actuals, and budget for the same scope, produce a commentary table.

Threshold

Flag a line for commentary if either is true:

Absolute variance ≥ the firm's materiality threshold (use the provided value; default 5% of the line or a fixed floor, whichever is greater)
The line is on the "always comment" list (revenue, headcount cost, cash)

For each flagged line

Column	Content
Line	Account or caption
Current / Prior / Budget	The three values
Δ vs prior and Δ vs budget	Amount and %
Driver	One sentence explaining the movement from underlying activity — not a restatement of the number

A driver explains why, not what: "Cloud spend up $1.2M on incremental GPU reservations for the May launch" — not "Cloud spend increased $1.2M (18%)."

Sourcing the driver

Look at the activity behind the line (journal-source breakdown, vendor mix, headcount delta, volume × rate) via the internal-gl MCP. If the driver isn't clear from the data, write "driver unclear — flag for controller" rather than inventing one.

Output

The commentary table plus a short narrative (3–5 sentences) summarizing the period's biggest movers.