Variance Commentary

anthropics/financial-services-pluginsOfficial

Automates the tedious part of monthly close: writing explanations for every P&L and balance sheet line that moved materially versus prior period or budget. You set a threshold (default 5%), and it produces a table with actuals, variances, and a one-sentence driver for each flagged item. The key discipline is that drivers must explain why from underlying data (journal sources, vendor mix, headcount changes) pulled via MCP, not just restate the number in words. If the data doesn't support a clear explanation, it flags for controller review instead of making something up. Saves hours of spreadsheet staring and gives your CFO something readable.

skills.sh installs: 190
GitHub stars: 29.5K
last updated: Jun 3, 2026

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Install

$ npx -y skills add anthropics/financial-services-plugins --skill variance-commentary --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

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.