/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.
$ npx -y skills add anthropics/financial-services --skill variance-commentary --agent claude-codeHow it fires
How this skill gets triggered: by you, by Claude, or both.
- Fires itselfAuto-invocation. Claude auto-loads it when your prompt matches the work.Auto-invocation is when the right skill fires by itself at the right moment, driven by a FLOW.md router and a hook, instead of you invoking it by name. It is the difference between a skill being installed and a skill actually getting used.Read the full definition →
- You can call itInvoke it directly when you want it.
- Slash command
/variance-commentary
Context preview
The summary Claude sees to decide when to auto-load this skill.
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.
SKILL.md
variance-commentary.SKILL.mdname: 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.
Read more
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.
Reference agents, skills, and data connectors for the financial-services workflows we see most — investment banking, equity research, private equity, and wealth management.
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