Model three financial scenarios
Models three what-if cases off current actuals: revenue growth with flat costs, an expense cut, and the growth needed to break even.
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You are an FP&A analyst building a quick scenario view off current actuals.
Context: amounts are in the Amount field and lines are in Account Group L2. Use
the most recent full period as the baseline and state which period it is.
{actuals_data}
Task: model three scenarios against that baseline.
1. Revenue grows 10% next quarter; expenses stay flat.
2. Operating expenses are cut 15%; revenue stays flat.
3. Solve for the revenue growth rate that reaches breakeven (net income = 0),
if currently net-negative.
Output format:
- A table showing baseline and all three scenarios across gross margin %,
operating income, and net income.
- The key assumption behind each scenario, stated plainly, including that COGS is
held as a constant % of revenue unless noted.
- For scenario 3, the growth rate solved for and whether it is realistic against
the recent trend.
- Label the scenarios as illustrative what-ifs, not forecasts.
Run it in four steps
- Export one full recent period from the Amount field by Account Group L2, with Revenue, COGS, and OpEx separable, and pick a period not distorted by one-offs.
- Paste it into
{actuals_data}. - Run it for the three scenarios against the baseline.
- Sanity-check the held assumptions, especially COGS as a flat percentage of revenue, before presenting any scenario as more than illustrative.
When to reach for this prompt
Use this for a quick leadership conversation about levers, the "what would it take to" questions that need directional answers in minutes rather than a full driver-based model. The breakeven solve is the standout, turning a vague worry into a specific growth number. It is the wrong tool for a decision with real money attached, because it flexes one line at a time and does not know that cutting OpEx might also cut the revenue that OpEx generated.
What you can expect back
Three-scenario model — baseline: most recent quarter (Amount)
| Baseline | S1: +10% rev (flat costs) | S2: -15% OpEx (flat rev) | S3: breakeven (solve growth) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 5,400K | 5,940K | 5,400K | 6,490K |
| COGS | (1,620K) | (1,782K) | (1,620K) | (1,947K) |
| Gross Profit | 3,780K | 4,158K | 3,780K | 4,543K |
| Gross margin % | 70.0% | 70.0% | 70.0% | 70.0% |
| OpEx | (4,050K) | (4,050K) | (3,443K) | (4,050K) |
| Operating income | (270K) | 108K | 337K | 493K |
| Net income | (270K) | 108K | 337K | 0K |
Assumptions: COGS held at 30% of revenue; OpEx fixed except where flexed.
Scenario 3: breakeven requires approximately +20% revenue at the current cost structure, above the recent ~12% trend, so it would likely require cost action too.
This prompt has real limitations you should understand.
Scenario models are persuasive precisely because they are internally consistent, and internal consistency is not the same as being right about the business. The clearest example is scenario 2: "cut OpEx 15%, revenue flat" assumes the cut touches nothing that generates revenue, which is rarely true if it lands on sales or marketing. The model does exactly what it was asked and nothing it was not, including the second-order effects it should have been asked about.
The cost assumptions are the other weak point. Holding COGS as a flat percentage of revenue is convenient and often wrong, since some COGS is fixed and some steps up in blocks, and scenario 1's tidy stable margin depends entirely on that simplification. Building all three cases off a single recent quarter then bakes that quarter's quirks, a one-time cost or a lumpy renewal, into every projection.
A scenario model is only as sound as the cost behavior and the baseline beneath it, which means knowing which costs are fixed versus variable and starting from a period that is genuinely representative. That structure comes from a clean, classified financial history rather than from the prompt, and it is the difference between three what-ifs that inform a decision and three that merely look rigorous.
What your data needs to look like
- A clean baseline: Amount by Account Group L2 for one full recent period
- Separable Revenue, COGS, and OpEx lines
- A view of which costs are fixed versus variable, to sanity-check the held assumptions
- A baseline period not distorted by one-time items
See how FinanceOS handles this prompt on real financial data.
Book a 20-minute walkthrough. We’ll run this exact prompt against a sample dataset reconciled through FinanceOS, and show you what changes when the data underneath is right.
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