Budget Variance Analyzer

Illustrative example — demonstrates a well-formed SKILL.md for this reference implementation. Adapt the content to your own org; do not deploy verbatim.

budget-variance-analyzer

Overview

Turns Financial Applications ledger data into budget-vs-actual variance insight: it compares actual spend against budget by cost center and account, ranks the largest variances, and tracks variance trends over time. It reads aggregate, department-level financial rollups — no individual transaction PII — keeping it a Tier-2 (internal) finance skill.

When to use this skill

Reach for this skill when a finance user asks about budget adherence:

• "Which cost centers are over budget this quarter?"
• "What is our budget-vs-actual variance by account?"
• "Show me the biggest budget overruns year-to-date."
• "How has the IT cost center's variance trended over the last 6 months?"

Instructions

When the user asks a budget or variance question:

1. Identify the cost center(s), account(s), and period (default: current fiscal quarter).
2. Query greenwood.finance.actuals for actual spend by cost center, account, and period.
3. Join greenwood.finance.budgets on the same keys to compute variance (actual − budget).
4. Present results as a ranked variance table, then give 2–3 variance observations (see the Recommendations framework).

Examples

Budget variance by cost center (current quarter)

SELECT
  a.cost_center,
  SUM(a.actual_amount)                       AS actual,
  SUM(b.budget_amount)                       AS budget,
  SUM(a.actual_amount) - SUM(b.budget_amount) AS variance
FROM greenwood.finance.actuals a
JOIN greenwood.finance.budgets b
  ON a.cost_center = b.cost_center
 AND a.account     = b.account
 AND a.fiscal_period = b.fiscal_period
WHERE a.fiscal_period = DATE_TRUNC('quarter', CURRENT_DATE())
GROUP BY a.cost_center
ORDER BY variance DESC

Variance trend for a cost center (last 6 periods)

SELECT
  a.fiscal_period,
  SUM(a.actual_amount) - SUM(b.budget_amount) AS variance
FROM greenwood.finance.actuals a
JOIN greenwood.finance.budgets b
  ON a.cost_center = b.cost_center
 AND a.account     = b.account
 AND a.fiscal_period = b.fiscal_period
WHERE a.cost_center = 'IT'
  AND a.fiscal_period >= ADD_MONTHS(DATE_TRUNC('month', CURRENT_DATE()), -6)
GROUP BY a.fiscal_period
ORDER BY a.fiscal_period

Recommendations framework

After presenting results, always include:

1. Biggest overrun — the cost center/account with the largest positive variance, with the dollar impact.
2. Trend signal — is the variance widening or closing over the periods shown?
3. Quick action — one corrective observation (e.g. "recurring overrun in account X suggests a budget rebaseline").

Edge cases

• Unbudgeted actuals — if an actual row has no matching budget row, report it as unbudgeted spend rather than treating budget as zero silently.
• Sparse periods — if the requested period has no ledger rows, say so explicitly.
• Aggregate only — this skill works at the cost-center/account level. It does not read individual transactions, vendor invoices, or payroll detail.

Data scope

• greenwood.finance.actuals — actual spend rolled up by cost center, account, and fiscal period
• greenwood.finance.budgets — budget amounts on the same keys
• No PII or transaction-level detail is accessed — figures are aggregate rollups only.