Write budget-vs-actual lines with the math and the right COGS

About this exercise

You're the FP&A analyst for October. Write a prompt for exactly four plain-text lines, no table and no intro, starting "Revenue:", "Gross profit:", "Opex:" and "Operating income:". Each shows actual vs budget, the dollar variance, the percent variance of budget (one decimal), and FAV or UNFAV. Use the corrected figures. State the variance only and don't guess at causes. Under 70 words. No bullets or numbering.

Common mistakes when you ask AI for this

• Using the preliminary COGS. The AI reads the table and uses $472,000, giving gross profit $662,000. Try: Say: "Use the Nov 4 COGS correction ($482,000) and recompute."
• Dividing by actual. The AI computes percent of actual, not budget. Try: Add: "Percent variance is of budget."
• Repeating unconfirmed causes. The AI explains the misses with the leadership comments. Try: Add: "State variances only. Do not give causes."
• Markdown extras. The AI adds bold labels, headings and a closing note. Try: Say: "Plain text, no bold. Output only the lines asked for."
• Trusting the AI to count words. AI is bad at counting and runs past word limits. Try: Ask for fewer words than the real cap and keep each line short.

What a strong prompt includes

• Lists the four lines
• Asks for variance in dollars and percent
• Applies the correction
• Bans causes
• Caps length

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