Agent skill · business finance · anthropics
variance-commentary
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.
Why this skill is useful
Provides a structured approach to variance analysis that includes specific thresholds and sourcing methods for commentary, which the AI wouldn't reliably generate on its own.
What it needs
About 1k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-08-04. 34,059 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
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.
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills anthropics/variance-commentary