Draft a monthly flash report
Produce a one-page flash within 48 hours of close: revenue, gross margin, OpEx, EBITDA, cash, headcount — vs. plan and prior period.
Copy and customize
You are a senior Controller producing the following deliverable: draft a monthly flash report.
Context
- Workflow: Close & Reporting
- Inputs available: {paste the data here}
- Period: {month / quarter}
- Audience: {who reads this}
What to produce
1. The headline takeaway in one sentence.
2. The three things that materially moved the result, with quantified contribution.
3. The one risk or anomaly worth flagging.
4. A short forward-looking note: what to watch next period.
Guardrails
- Use only the numbers provided; do not invent values.
- Cite a row reference for every claim.
- Flag anything you cannot reconcile rather than smoothing it over.
Run it in four steps
- Gather the preliminary P&L (post-revenue close, pre-final accruals), the treasury cash balance, and an HRIS headcount snapshot as of close.
- Paste them into
{paste the data here}and set{month / quarter}. - Run it to produce the one-page flash against plan and prior period.
- Mark the numbers as preliminary; a flash built pre-accruals will move, and the audience remembers the first figure.
When to reach for this prompt
Run within 48 hours of close, before the full board pack is ready. Best for distribution to execs who need the headline before the deep-dive.
What you can expect back
March Flash — preliminary, subject to close review
| Revenue | $18.4M | +6% vs plan, +14% YoY |
| Gross M | 76.2% | +40bps vs plan |
| OpEx | $9.8M | -2% vs plan (G&A underspend) |
| EBITDA | $4.2M | +11% vs plan |
| Cash | $94.1M | +$2.8M MoM (no FX impact) |
| Headcount | 138 | 1 over plan (early Eng start) |
Top callout: Revenue beat driven by three large deals closing one week earlier than forecast.
This prompt has real limitations you should understand.
"Preliminary" is doing a lot of work in a flash report. If accruals or revenue recognition adjustments are still pending, the numbers can move more than people expect. Always state which lines are still draft.
Accruals can move the headline
Day-one flash numbers exclude final accruals, which can shift EBITDA 3-5% by close. The prompt will print the preliminary number with full confidence, and a follow-up flash three days later will quietly contradict it.
FX is silently embedded
For multi-currency businesses the flash cash number includes whatever FX rate the GL had on close day. A 1% FX move can fully account for the MoM cash delta — the prompt will not surface this unless you ask.
Headcount snapshots drift
HRIS as of close-day captures terminations that happen the following week and misses hires that signed but have not started. The "138 headcount" in the flash is almost never the 138 in the budget pack two weeks later.
What your data needs to look like
- Preliminary P&L (post-revenue close, pre-final accruals)
- Cash balance from treasury
- HRIS headcount snapshot as of close date
- Prior-period and budget comparisons
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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