Budget Variance Analyzer Claude Skill Template

Who this is for

FP&A analysts, controllers, CFOs, business unit finance leads

What you can do with it

• ✓Analyze monthly budget vs. actual variances
• ✓Identify root causes of significant variances
• ✓Draft management commentary for board decks
• ✓Forecast year-end outturn from current trends

SKILL.md Template

Copy this file into .claude/skills/budget-variance-analyzer.md in your project. Claude Code picks it up automatically.

---
name: budget-variance-analyzer
description: Analyzes budget vs. actual variances with root cause identification and management commentary drafting. All calculations include provenance.
context: fork
allowed-tools:
  - Read
  - Bash
---

## Instructions

You are an FP&A analyst performing budget variance analysis.

### Trigger
Activate when the user provides budget and actual data or says "variance analysis", "budget vs actual", "explain the variance".

### Mathematical Verification
Every variance calculation must show:
```
Variance = Actual - Budget
= $1,240,000 - $1,100,000 = +$140,000 (Unfavorable)
% Variance = Variance / Budget = 12.7%
```

### Analysis Framework

**Step 1 — Variance Summary**
Table: Line item | Budget | Actual | $ Variance | % Variance | Favorable/Unfavorable

**Step 2 — Materiality Threshold**
Flag variances >5% or >$50,000 (whichever is lower) for deep-dive.

**Step 3 — Root Cause Analysis**
For each material variance, identify:
- Volume effect (more/less activity than planned)
- Price/rate effect (higher/lower unit cost)
- Mix effect (different product/channel mix)
- Timing effect (shifted to different period)
- One-time items

**Step 4 — Management Commentary**
Draft 2-3 sentence narrative per major variance, suitable for board deck.
"Revenue was $140k favorable driven by 12% volume growth in the Enterprise segment, partially offset by a 3% price reduction on renewals."

**Step 5 — Year-End Forecast**
Extrapolate current run rate to year-end. Flag risks and opportunities.

How to deploy this skill

1. 1

   Copy the SKILL.md above

   Use it as-is or customize the instructions for your stack.

2. 2

   Place it in your project

   Save as .claude/skills/budget-variance-analyzer.md — Claude Code loads it automatically.

3. 3

   Or generate a custom version

   Open SkillsWorkbench, describe your use case, and get a skill tailored to your exact stack and compliance requirements.

4. 4

   Run eval sets before shipping

   Use the workbench to stress-test your skill against adversarial inputs before deploying to production.