Roll a 12-month revenue total forward by one month

About this exercise

You're updating the rolling 12-month revenue figure for the board deck. Write a prompt for plain text with lines starting "Prior R12:", "Add Oct 2026:", "Drop Oct 2025:", "New R12:" and "Change:", each with the math in $M. Change is shown in dollars and as a percent of the prior R12 to one decimal. Don't mention seasonality. Under 70 words. No bullets or numbering.

Common mistakes when you ask AI for this

• Adding without dropping. The AI adds October 2026 to the prior total and gets $12.45M. Try: Say: "New R12 = prior R12 + new month - month dropped."
• Mentioning seasonality. The AI says October is seasonally strong. Try: Add: "Do not mention seasonality."
• Percent on the new total. The AI divides the change by the new R12. Try: Add: "Percent change = change / prior R12."
• 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

• Names the five lines
• Gives the formula
• Gives the percent base
• Bans seasonality
• Caps length

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