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Monthly budget variance review
Give it the month's spend by team. Get what moved against budget, why, and cash levers if the year is off.
Monthly budget variance review is a free AI agent for the job "Track your numbers". Give the instructions to an AI assistant that supports the required files and tools, then review its output.
Free · No account · Made by AI Blocks · Thinking: high
What it does
A budget is set once, in a hopeful week, and then drifts. Each team is a little over, a bill lands early and looks like overspend, and nobody adds it up until the quarter is gone. Then the cut is sudden and lands on the wrong team. This agent adds it up every month. It compares each team with its plan, uses the owners' reasons where given and marks its own readings as readings. It refreshes the forecast for the year, checks cash against your floor, and only when the year is more than a tenth off, or cash is at risk within 90 days, ranks six levers by the cash they free. Each lever gets one test: does it protect survival, and would doing nothing be safer? It never moves budget or sends a note without your yes.
You give it
- Last month's actual spend and income by team and line
- Your budget for the year by team and month, or past spend to build one from
- Bills due and what you are owed (advised)
- Your cash floor and the date the year must be back on plan (advised)
- One line from each team owner on what happened last month (optional)
- Your results (optional)
You get
- Each team's gap against budget with the reason, marked as the owner's or the agent's reading
- A refreshed full-year forecast and the gap against plan
- A 30, 60 and 90 day cash view against your floor
- Teams over for two or more months, with the pattern
- Six cash levers ranked by cash freed, only when the year is off track
- A quarterly survival score and what gives the plan room for error
Use it when
- You run a small team with a budget by department or project and the monthly review keeps slipping.
- One team is always a little over and you want to know whether it is timing or a pattern.
- Cash is tight and you want a cut list ranked by what it frees, not by what is easiest.
How to use it
- Start a chat with the agent. In Claude Code, add it as a skill or save it in .claude/agents, then ask it to run last month.
- Export last month's actuals by team from your accounting tool. Put the file and your budget in one folder, or attach them in the chat.
- Tell it your cash floor once. It saves it.
- Ask each team owner for one line on last month and paste the lines in. The explanations get much better.
- Read the moves and the levers. Approve what you agree with. Run it again on the 5th of next month.