Summarize the fiscal year in four numbers
Returns total revenue, total expenses, net income, and gross margin for the fiscal year, with a prior-year comparison when the data allows.
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You are preparing a quick executive financial summary for a CFO.
Context: amounts are in the Amount field and lines are in Account Group L2. Use
the current fiscal year to date.
{financial_data}
Task: report the headline financials and a one-line read on direction.
Output format:
- Four figures for the fiscal year: total revenue, total expenses, net income,
gross margin %.
- A prior-year % change beside each, only if prior-year data is present; otherwise
state "no prior-year data."
- One sentence: is the business growing, holding, or compressing, and on what basis.
- Compute gross margin only if Revenue and COGS are both identifiable; otherwise
omit it and say why.
Run it in four steps
- Export the fiscal-year-to-date P&L from the Amount field with Revenue and COGS clearly identifiable, plus prior-year truncated to the same date if you want the YoY column.
- Paste it into
{financial_data}. - Run it for the four headline figures and the one-line read.
- Confirm what went into "total expenses" before quoting net income; the contents of that bucket change the story.
When to reach for this prompt
Use this when a leader wants the shape of the year in a few seconds, at the top of a board call, in a Slack update, or as the cover line of a deck. The low data bar is the appeal. It depends on "expenses" being a clean, agreed bucket; where COGS, OpEx, and below-the-line items are not separable, the net income figure can stand but the gross margin cannot.
What you can expect back
FY-to-date financial summary (Amount)
| Total revenue | $22.8M | +11% vs. PY |
| Total expenses | $20.1M | +14% vs. PY |
| Net income | $2.7M | -8% vs. PY |
| Gross margin | 69.8% | -120 bps vs. PY |
Revenue is growing double digits, but expenses are growing faster, so net income and margin are both compressing year over year. These figures provide a useful high-level view of overall financial health.
This prompt has real limitations you should understand.
The simplest summary carries the most authority and the least nuance. Four numbers on a screen read as settled, but two of them depend on classification choices that may not have been validated. "Total expenses" is the main one: whether it includes COGS, depreciation, interest, and tax changes the net income story completely, and the model labels whatever it summed as "expenses" without flagging what went into the bucket.
Gross margin has the same exposure. If COGS is partly buried in OpEx the margin is overstated, and if OpEx leaks into COGS it is understated, and a single percentage hides which. The year-over-year column adds a third risk: a "+11% vs. PY" computed against a full prior year compares an incomplete period to a complete one unless the prior year is truncated to the same fiscal date.
For a four-number summary to be safe to quote, the expense hierarchy needs a clean separation of COGS, operating, and below-the-line items, and the prior-year figures need to be cut to the same point in the fiscal calendar. That structure is defined in the data model, not the prompt, and it is the difference between a headline a CFO can stand behind and one that quietly mixes categories.
What your data needs to look like
- An Amount field covering the fiscal year to date
- Identifiable Revenue and COGS lines for a real gross margin
- An agreed definition of what "expenses" includes
- Prior-year data truncated to the same fiscal date for the year-over-year column
See how FinanceOS handles this prompt on real financial data.
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