Workflows · FP&A · Tier 1 · first automations
Monthly forecasting and analysis workbook, one tab per cost centre
The purest 'same structure repeated by period' process: a parameters tab, fund or department summaries, and one tab per cost centre with lookups to the chart of accounts and variance commentary.
By hand: Monthly, four to eight hours per organization · Municipal, university, and any decentralized organization with cost-centre owners.
The card, as it runs by hand
- Input
- Actuals, budget, and forecast retrieved for the period; the workbook template with one tab per cost centre or fund activity.
- What I do to it
- Refresh every tab for the period, compute variance per line, write the commentary per tab, and roll it up to the summary.
- Output
- The refreshed workbook with first-draft commentary per tab and a rolled-up summary.
- Who checks
- The manager reviews; the finance business partner consolidates across organizations.
- How often
- Monthly.
- How long
- Four to eight hours per organization by hand.
- How long now
- Measured in the course after the first governed run, per card. Not estimated here.
As a governed workflow
- Stays in code
- The retrieval, the structure, and the variance arithmetic.
- The AI does
- Draft variance commentary per tab and roll it up to the summary, in the house style.
- A person still
- The analyst checks the story instead of typing it. The manager signs off as before.
- The log
- Period, organizations refreshed, tabs with commentary, reviewer.
AI does the preparation. A named person approves it. Nothing posts to the books without that approval, and every run is recorded.
Where it goes wrong
Commentary that explains variance without the threshold rule. Put the threshold on the card.
Why it lands in a room
Textbook repeated structure; the first thing to schedule across all organizations once one works.