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 for variance analysis that includes specific thresholds and commentary requirements not commonly found in generic finance practices.
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--fe1f01