mcpbeat

Variance Commentary

anthropics/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.

390 tokens
context cost
the whole folder, loaded on every use
1
files
instructions only
0
copies elsewhere
how many repositories repackaged it
33987
stars on the repo
on the repository, not the skill itself

Install

one command, takes just this skill from the repository 
npx skills add https://github.com/anthropics/financial-services --skill variance-commentary

The instruction itself

5 sections, as written by the author

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.

How to use it

Copy the folder

Take anthropics/variance-commentary from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.

Check the name does not clash

The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.