Financial analysts & FP&A teams
Use the AI assistant your employer allows for the reading and drafting around the month: variance commentary, questions to budget holders, the forecast narrative, a model in plain words, scenarios and the pack summary. Every figure traces to its source and every reason to its owner; the forecast, the treatment and the sign-off stay with the people who sign.
Get startedNo card needed to begin · I already study here
9 short lessons · 56 min of audio · a final exam and a course certificate
Use an AI assistant for the variance commentary, the questions to budget holders, the forecast narrative and the pack summary of a finance team's month, while every figure comes from the file, every reason from the person who owns it, and the forecast and the sign-off stay with the people whose names are on them.
the variance list with every reason left blank, and a question each budget holder can answer from the corridor: The figure comes from the file; A question a budget holder can answer
a forecast with an owner next to every assumption, a model explained by its inputs, and what-if scenarios without an invented number: The forecast has your name on it; The model in plain words; What if, without inventing
money terms read in the signed contract, a dashboard figure tied to the books, a front page that only says what the pack shows, and the month on one page: The money inside the contract; Before you quote the dashboard; The front page of the pack; The month on one page
One page that walks your month from closed books to pack sent, written from your own last cycle with no figures in it: where figures, reasons and judgments come from, each step with where the assistant helps and what you check, the hands-off list, and who signs each step, by name. A line goes under what changed after every cycle.
The certificate names that artefact and the tools you used — not a title. It carries a code anyone can check: verify a certificate.
The opening of lesson one, exactly as it plays inside — and the exercise that comes with it, which you can do right now without an account.
Every month, once the books are closed, the same piece of writing comes due. The actuals are in, meaning what really happened. Beside them sit the budget, the plan agreed for the year, and the forecast, the current best view of where the year will end. The gap between two of them is a variance, and someone in finance explains it.
This course follows Elena, the FP and A manager at a mid-size, privately owned company that makes commercial refrigeration for supermarkets and restaurants and services it. FP and A means financial planning and analysis: the team that builds the budget and forecast and explains the numbers to the business. She reports to the finance director. Titles and the split of work differ between companies; in some, the controller, who runs the close and the books, also plans.
Her commentary goes into the management pack, the reports the leadership team reads each month. It covers every line above the threshold for comment, the size of difference her finance director has agreed is worth explaining. Each line belongs to a budget holder, the person responsible for that spending or income: the head of sales, of operations, of service.
Every variance needs three answers: what moved, why, and whether it comes back. The file answers the first and can hint at the second. People answer the other two.
"Whether it comes back" separates commentary from a description of the table. A timing difference is money planned for one month that lands in another: a maintenance invoice planned for this month that arrives next month. An ongoing difference changes the year: a supplier's price rise, a contract lost.
Try it now · Get the variance list with the reasons left blank
Where:The assistant your employer approved for financial figures, or made-up figures if it is not cleared
Here are this month's actuals against budget by department, exactly as exported. List every line where the difference is above our threshold, quote each figure exactly as it appears in the file with its row, and mark it favorable if it is better for profit than budget and adverse if it is worse. Leave the reason and whether it reverses blank, and do not suggest reasons.
The rest of the catalogue is there when you need it — but you do not have to choose anything today. One course, one short lesson at a time, one page at the end.
Get started