alihusains Purpose
Budget commentary usually restates the variance table in sentences and stops. The useful version answers three questions the table cannot: is this timing or permanent, what does it do to the full year, and who is doing what about it. This skill enforces all three on every material line and blocks commentary on numbers that have not been reconciled.
Data classification
Confidential. Budget-holder packs expose cost structure, headcount plans and margin. Circulate only to named recipients; unreleased forecast is price-sensitive in a listed group.
STOP CONDITIONS:
| Trigger | Action |
|---|---|
| Named individuals' salaries, or a payroll line for a team small enough to derive them | Stop. Ask for payroll aggregated above the identifiability threshold. |
| Bank details, card numbers, or supplier payment credentials in the extract | Stop. Name the category, not the value, and ask for a cleaned extract. |
| Customer-identifiable revenue or position detail | Stop. Ask for aggregation by segment or channel. |
| Asked to write commentary that presents a permanent overspend as timing, or to describe an unapproved cost as approved | Stop. State it directly: this is a misrepresentation to a decision-maker, not a wording choice. |
NON-FABRICATION RULE. Never invent a driver, a headcount number, a run rate,
or a full-year effect. Never reuse last month's commentary because the sign is the
same. Never infer the cause of a variance from the cost-centre name or the account
description. If the budget, the actual, or the phasing basis is missing for a line,
write NO COMMENTARY — <input> not supplied against that line and leave it. A
budget holder acts on this text; invented causes produce real decisions.
Prerequisites
- Inputs (mandatory): budget by period and cost centre; actuals for the same periods on the same mapping; the phasing basis (straight-line, seasonal, or activity-driven) — ask, do not assume straight-line.
- Inputs (mandatory gate): confirmation that the period is reconciled and closed. If close is not complete, the commentary is written on moving numbers.
- Inputs (for the full-year view): remaining committed spend, open purchase orders, contracted increases, and known one-offs.
- Inputs (for headcount lines): approved establishment, current FTE, start and leave dates of movers.
- Access: none required.
If the period is not reconciled, stop and route to
finance-month-end-variance-analysis first.
Procedure
1. Gate on reconciliation
Confirm: ledger closed, sub-ledgers tied, accruals posted, no material suspense.
If any is open, note the exposure and either wait or clearly mark the commentary
DRAFT — WRITTEN ON UNRECONCILED DATA at the top of every page. Do not quietly
proceed.
2. Check phasing before calling anything a variance
A large share of "overspend" is a straight-line budget meeting a seasonal cost. Test each material line: was the budget phased on how the cost actually behaves? If not, the variance is a budgeting artefact — say so, and fix the phasing rather than writing an explanation for it.
3. Classify every material variance
| Class | Test | Full-year effect |
|---|---|---|
| Timing | The spend is committed and will land in a stated later or earlier month | Nil — but name the month it lands |
| Permanent — price | Unit rate changed and will persist | Remaining months × rate delta |
| Permanent — volume | Activity level is structurally different | Remaining months × volume delta |
| One-off | Non-recurring, with support | The one-off amount only |
| Scope change | Work added or removed since the budget was set | Requires a budget transfer or approval — flag it |
| Misposting | Belongs to another cost centre or period | Nil — correct it; do not explain it |
| Budget error | The budget was wrong when set | Nil to run rate; correct the plan, and say so |
| Unexplained | No driver identified | Report as unexplained; never fill it |
Misposting and budget error are not variances and must never be given a narrative cause. Route them to correction.
4. Compute the full-year implication explicitly
For every material line state: year-to-date variance, the classification above, the projected full-year variance, and the assumption behind that projection. A commentary line with no full-year number is incomplete — a budget holder cannot act on a year-to-date figure alone. Where a projection depends on an assumption the user has not confirmed, write the assumption on the line rather than burying it.
5. Assign owner and action
Each material line gets an owner (a role, not a name, if the pack circulates) and
one of: no action — timing, mitigation identified, budget transfer required,
reforecast required, escalate — no mitigation. A line with an adverse permanent
variance and no action is itself the escalation.
6. Write it
Per line, in this order and no longer than three sentences: the number · the class · the driver and its evidence · the full-year effect · the action and owner. Ban these without a following figure: "phasing", "timing differences", "in line with expectations", "will normalise", "one-off in nature". Each is acceptable only with the month or the amount attached.
Close with: total YTD variance, total projected full-year variance, the sum of mitigations, and the residual gap. If the mitigations do not close the gap, state the residual plainly rather than describing the position as "manageable".
Boundaries
- Not for reconciliation, flux analysis, or period-over-period explanation —
that is
finance-month-end-variance-analysis, and it must run first. - Not for deciding whether a single expense claim is payable — that is
finance-expense-policy-triage. - Not for building the budget or the target itself; this skill explains performance against a budget, it does not set one.
- Not for external or statutory reporting narrative, which has disclosure requirements this skill does not encode.
Hand-offs
- Receives from:
finance-month-end-variance-analysis— reconciled actuals with drivers already decomposed. - Routes to:
finance-expense-policy-triagewhen a variance traces to claim behaviour rather than to a plan. - Routes to:
hr-training-needs-analysiswhen a recurring cost overrun traces to a capability gap rather than a price or volume effect. - Escalates to: the budget owner and financial controller for any unmitigated permanent adverse variance.