The monthly pack, built before anyone asks where it is.
The same report is rebuilt from the same systems every period by people you employ for their judgement. This agent pulls the figures from source, assembles the pack in your format and drafts the commentary on what moved.
What the reporting agent does
Pull the numbers. Write the pack.
Almost every firm has a version of the same arrangement. Somebody senior loses the first days of each month to exports, a workbook of linked tabs, a few figures chased by email and a final read through for the errors that always turn up somewhere. The pack lands the day before the meeting, and occasionally during it.
The agent takes the assembly. It reads from the systems that hold the numbers, applies the definitions you have written down, and builds the pack in the format your board already recognises. Movement against budget, forecast and the prior period is calculated, and where the underlying data explains the movement the explanation is drafted alongside it.
What that buys is not mainly the saved days, useful as they are. It is that the pack arrives early enough to be read, holds the same definitions period to period, and can answer a question in the meeting because every figure records where it came from. The finance team spends its time on the analysis instead of the construction.
A pack is only as good as what sits underneath it. The reconciliation agent checks the figures agree across systems before they are reported, the data quality agent keeps the underlying records clean, and the data extraction agent handles the inputs that still arrive as documents.
Capabilities
What it handles.
Figures taken from source
The agent reads from the systems that hold the numbers rather than from a sheet somebody re-keyed. That removes the two questions that follow every pack around. Whether the figure is current, and whether it was typed in correctly.
The same pack, in the same format, every period
Structure, definitions and comparatives stay fixed unless you change them. A metric means the same thing in March as it did in January, so the trend across the last six packs is a real trend rather than a change in method.
Commentary on what moved
Movement against budget, against forecast and against the same period last year, with the explanation attached where the underlying data supports one. A drop in a margin line arrives with the driver identified rather than as a number for somebody to chase.
One dataset, several audiences
The board version, the management version and the departmental cut are produced from the same figures. Nobody spends the meeting reconciling two packs that disagree because they were built by different people at different times.
Every figure traceable to its source
Each number in the pack records where it came from and how it was calculated. When somebody queries a line in the meeting, the answer is available rather than an action to come back next month.
On the desk before the meeting
The pack is produced on your reporting calendar and delivered ahead of the meeting it is for. People arrive having read it, which changes what the meeting is for.
Who it is for
Built for teams who rebuild the same report every period.
Finance directors and finance teams
The recurring pack is rebuilt from scratch every period by people whose time is worth more than the assembly. The analysis is the job. The copying, formatting and chasing is not.
Managing directors and boards
A pack that arrives before the meeting, in the same shape every time, with the movement already explained. Decisions made on current figures rather than on the position as at three weeks ago.
Department and operational heads
The numbers that describe your own area, on the same cadence and drawn from the same dataset as the board sees. No parallel version built in a spreadsheet that quietly disagrees with the official one.
Firms reporting to clients or investors
Recurring reporting produced to a fixed format for people outside the business. Consistency and timeliness carry more weight there than presentation, and both are exactly what a manual process loses first.
What is included
What you get.
Connections to the systems that hold your numbers, agreed and built during the scope.
The pack rebuilt to your existing format, with the metric definitions written down and fixed.
Variance analysis against budget, forecast and prior period, with commentary where the data supports it.
Separate cuts for board, management and departmental audiences, all produced from one dataset.
Production on your reporting calendar, delivered ahead of the meeting rather than during it.
A source trace behind every figure so any line in the pack can be answered on the spot.
How it gets built
How it gets built.
01
Take apart the pack you produce today
We go through the existing pack line by line and establish where each figure comes from and how it is currently calculated. This is usually the point at which a firm discovers that two of its metrics are defined differently by two of its teams.
02
Write the definitions down and fix them
Every metric gets a written definition that you sign off. That is what makes the pack consistent between periods and what makes a comparison across six months mean something. It is also what makes the pack defensible in a meeting.
03
Rebuild periods you have already reported
The agent produces packs for months your team already issued and the two are compared figure by figure. Anything that differs is resolved before go live, and differences occasionally turn out to be errors in the original.
04
Set the calendar and the review step
You choose when the pack is produced, who reviews the drafted commentary before it is issued and where it lands. Nothing goes to a board or a client without a person approving it.
Why Delancy
Against three days of somebody's month rebuilding the same spreadsheet.
Built to your pack, not to a dashboard template
Your management pack is the shape it is because of how your business is run and what your board asks for. The agent reproduces that. Replacing it with a generic dashboard is a different and usually unwanted project.
Commentary is the part that costs you
Producing a table is not the expensive step. Working out why the number moved and writing it down is. The agent takes the first pass at that, and your finance team edits rather than starts from a blank page.
Definitions stay fixed
Most disputes about a pack are really disputes about definitions. Written down once and applied by the agent every period, they stop drifting, and the comparison across periods becomes worth making.
No ongoing dependency
The agent runs in your environment against your systems, with the definitions documented and the price agreed before build. You are not renting seats on a reporting platform to see your own figures.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common Questions.
No. The starting point is the pack you produce today, rebuilt so that it assembles itself. Firms usually change the format afterwards, once producing a variation costs an afternoon of configuration rather than another manual build, but that is a decision you make later rather than a condition of starting.
A dashboard shows you the current state and waits for you to interrogate it. A management pack is a periodic document with commentary, comparatives and a narrative, produced for a specific meeting. They serve different purposes. This agent produces the document. If you already have a dashboard, the agent can read from the same underlying data.
It drafts the commentary. Movement is identified against budget, forecast and prior period, and where the underlying data supports an explanation it is attached. A person reviews and edits before the pack is issued, because commentary carries judgement that should stay with your team.
That is the normal case and it is a large part of why the manual build takes so long. The agent reads from each source it is given and assembles the dataset. Where a source genuinely cannot be reached, that input stays manual and is clearly marked in the pack rather than quietly assumed.
No. This is internal management reporting. The pack your board, your management team and in some cases your clients read to run the business. Statutory accounts and regulatory returns are a different discipline with their own review requirements and are not what this agent produces.
Pilots start from £2,500. The price is agreed before any build starts. Where the agent relies on third-party services to run, those operational costs sit with you and are made clear before build begins.
FREE ASSESSMENT
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Ten questions on the task, the volume and the output you need. You get a diagnosis of whether an agent fits, not a score.
Take the assessmentCount the days your last management pack took to build.
Book a discovery call. Bring the pack you produce today and we will work out which parts of it can assemble themselves.
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