Finance · Skill
Variance Analysis
Decompose financial variances into drivers with narrative explanations and waterfall analysis. Use when analyzing budget vs. actual, period-over-period changes, revenue or expense variances, or preparing variance commentary for leadership.
Open in PhởWhat the skill covers
The sections of its instructions, in order.
- 01 Variance Decomposition Techniques
- Price / Volume Decomposition
- Rate / Mix Decomposition
- Headcount / Compensation Decomposition
- Spend Category Decomposition
- 02 Materiality Thresholds and Investigation Triggers
- Setting Thresholds
- Recommended Threshold Framework
- Investigation Priority
- 03 Narrative Generation for Variance Explanations
- Structure for Each Variance Narrative
- Narrative Quality Checklist
- Common Narrative Anti-Patterns to Avoid
- 04 Waterfall Chart Methodology
- Concept
- Data Structure
- Text-Based Waterfall Format
- Bridge Reconciliation Table
- Waterfall Best Practices
- 05 Budget vs Actual vs Forecast Comparisons
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Frequently asked questions
What does Variance Analysis do?
Decompose financial variances into drivers with narrative explanations and waterfall analysis. Use when analyzing budget vs. actual, period-over-period changes, revenue or expense variances, or preparing variance commentary for leadership.
Is Variance Analysis free to use?
Yes. Variance Analysis is published by Anthropic under the Apache 2.0 licence, and you can use it with a free Phở account.
How do I use Variance Analysis in Phở?
Press Open in Phở, then Try to apply it to your next message, or add the Finance set so Phở loads it whenever a request matches.
Does Variance Analysis need other tools?
No. It works in a normal Phở chat with what you type or upload.
Copied unchanged from anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins at commit d900840 and credited to Anthropic, who is not affiliated with Phở. The full instructions and licence text ship with the skill inside Phở.