Budget versus actuals briefing
Business partners spend their prep assembling the same story: what moved on this budget, why, and what is still unexplained. This agent puts that briefing together from the reporting you have approved and the documents sitting behind it, so the meeting starts at the discussion. A business partner reviews it before the budget holder gets it.
Step by step
Take the approved reporting
The agent works from the signed-off actuals and the budget the holder is measured against, for the period under review.
Group movements by budget line
Each line with a movement is listed with the direction and the period, in the structure the budget holder recognises.
Attach the supporting evidence
Invoices, purchase records, contracts and threads that explain a movement are linked against the line they explain.
Separate explained from open lines
Lines with an explanation and lines without are shown apart, so the meeting spends its time on the open ones.
Draft the questions to ask
A short list of questions for the budget holder is drafted from the open lines, in plain language rather than finance shorthand.
A business partner reviews it
A partner checks the briefing and approves it. It reaches the budget holder only after that.
Exactly what this agent can see, touch and change
The same five controls sit behind every ollo agent. These are this one's settings — visible before you build it, not buried in an admin screen afterwards.
Context
What reaches the modelFP&A and finance business partners who run a monthly review with several budget holders and rebuild the same pack for each one.
Escalation
When it asks a personA business partner reviews the briefing before the budget holder receives it
Applications & Rights
Which tools it uses, and what it may do in each
SharePointRead only
SlackRead 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
FP&A and finance business partners who run a monthly review with several budget holders and rebuild the same pack for each one.
What you’ll need
- Approved actuals and budget connected
- Document stores for supporting records
- An agreed threshold for discussion
- A business partner to review
What you get
- A per-line variance briefing
- Linked supporting documents
- A list of questions for the meeting
What it doesn’t do
It gathers what the documents say and lays it out. It does not forecast, reallocate budget, or attribute a movement to a cause the records do not support.
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
Does it forecast the rest of the year?
No. It describes what has happened and what the records say about why. Forecasting is a judgement about the future and it stays in your model, with your assumptions, owned by your team.
How does it decide which movements matter?
You set the threshold during the co-build, per budget or per line. The agent applies your rule and shows what it left out, so a business partner can see whether the threshold is set sensibly.
What if the explanation is only in someone's head?
Then the line is marked open, and the drafted question list is how you get the explanation. Over time the answers you record become the evidence the next briefing picks up.
Can budget holders ask it questions themselves?
They can, within the rights you set, and they get cited answers about their own budget. Most teams start with the business partner in the middle and open it up once the briefing format has settled.