Year-on-year variance check
The movements that need explaining are found by comparing this year with last, and the explanation is usually already somewhere in the file. This agent does the comparison, attaches the explanation where the file gives one, and lists the movements that nobody has accounted for. It arrives before the client meeting rather than during it.
Step by step
Connect both years of files
The current file and the prior year's, including the schedules and the correspondence that sits behind them.
Set what counts as a movement
Your firm's own thresholds and the lines you always look at, agreed once so the list is not padded with noise.
It compares the positions
This year's figures are set against last year's, line by line, with both papers referenced.
It looks for the explanation
Where the file, the correspondence or the prior review already explains a movement, the agent attaches it.
It lists the unexplained
Movements with nothing behind them come back as a list of questions, for the preparer or for the client.
The manager approves the list
The variance list is filed only once the manager has read it and decided which points are worth raising.
Exactly what this agent can see, touch and change
The same five controls sit behind every Askollo agent. These are this one's settings — visible before you build it, not buried in an admin screen afterwards.
Context
What reaches the modelPreparers and managers on recurring compliance work, and anyone who wants the awkward questions before the client asks them.
Escalation
When it asks a personThe manager approves the variance list before it goes on the engagement file
Applications & Rights
Which tools it uses, and what it may do in each
SharePointRead only
DropboxRead only
Google DriveReadWrites newCreates new records or documents. Never edits, moves or deletes anything that was already there.Verification
How you know it’s rightEvery claim links to the document it came from. A statement the agent cannot cite does not make it into the output — which is what makes the result reviewable in minutes rather than re-read end to end.
Who it’s for
Preparers and managers on recurring compliance work, and anyone who wants the awkward questions before the client asks them.
What you’ll need
- Current and prior year files connected
- Movement thresholds agreed
- A location for the variance list
- A manager to approve
What you get
- A movement list with both years referenced
- Explanations attached where they exist
- A question list for the unexplained
What it doesn’t do
It compares what is in the documents you connect. It does not recompute a tax position, does not decide whether an explanation is acceptable, and treats a plausible story in the file as a candidate rather than an answer.
We build the first one with you
Not a template you configure alone. We sit with your team, build it on real data, and hand over the controls.
Scope
One session with the people who actually do the work. We agree what the agent reads, what it may write, and who approves.
Co-build
Built on your own data, not a sandbox. You watch it being made, so you know why it behaves the way it does.
Handover
You own the controls. Change the context, tighten the rights, move the approval gate — without coming back to us.
Parts of the work currently spread across the categories below. It does not replace any of those products outright.
Frequently asked
Is this analytical review?
It is the mechanical part of it: the comparison and the hunt for an existing explanation. Deciding whether an explanation is credible, and whether the movement points at something else, is the professional part and stays with your manager.
What thresholds does it use?
Yours. We set them in the co-build against the lines your firm actually looks at, because a generic threshold either buries the list or misses the point that mattered.
Can it read explanations out of emails?
If the mailbox is connected, yes, and that is often where the explanation lives. It quotes the message and links it, so the manager can judge whether an email exchange is enough to go on the file.
Does it write to the file itself?
It writes the variance list to a drafting location, and only the approved version is filed. The working papers themselves are not edited by the agent.