Budget Variance Cabinet

One Analyst pulls actuals vs. budget from your ERP every month, calculates department-level variances, and assigns RAG flags. One QA agent checks the logic and narrative before publication. Leadership gets a clean variance report — not a spreadsheet — with drivers explained and full-year forecast adjusted.

Keep your ERP and your annual plan. Replace the pivot-table sprint, the 40-line email to department heads, and the deck that's already out of date by the time it lands.

The team

• [[.agents/analyst]] — Variance Analyst. Pulls actuals vs. budget from ERP by department; calculates absolute and percentage variances; assigns RAG status; computes revised full-year forecast; writes structured data and variance narrative.
• [[.agents/qa]] — Finance QA. Checks the Analyst's variance math, narrative accuracy, and RAG flag logic before the report is published. Blocks publication if numbers don't reconcile.

Recurring rhythm

Cadence	Job	Owner	Output
Monthly (1st 09:00)	[[.jobs/monthly-variance-report]]	Analyst → QA	Full variance report in [[dashboard]]
Weekly (Mon 08:00)	[[.jobs/weekly-overspend-alert]]	Analyst	Overspend alert in .cabinet-state/

How to run the demo

1. Open [[dashboard]] — variance by department: budget vs. actual, variance %, RAG flag, key drivers, and full-year forecast table.
2. Browse data/variance-may-2026.md — the structured data file with per-department actuals, budgets, and variance reasons.
3. Check .cabinet-state/overspend-alert.md — the weekly flag the Analyst drops when any department exceeds 110% of its weekly budget pace.

Connectors

Required: ERP (NetSuite/QuickBooks/Xero — GL actuals and budget lines), payroll system (headcount actuals). Recommended: BI tool (Looker/Metabase for actuals pull), department tracking sheets (Google Sheets / Notion), Slack (overspend alert delivery).