Explain Your Finances in Board-ready Language
Explain your finances in board-ready language
Your budget-versus-actuals export becomes a plain-language summary a board member can read in five minutes: where the money went, what's off track and by how much, and the questions worth asking. It handles the translation and you verify the numbers.
Sensitive data goes in
Internal, but usually not personal. Budget-vs-actuals numbers describe the organization rather than individuals. The assistant asks whether your export lists pay by person's name, and stops until you've taken those rows out.
What it will ask you
What you keep the books in and how you pull the budget-versus-actuals report, whether that report names anyone's pay, what period it covers, and anything the numbers don't show, like a grant that always lands late. You write nothing. If you have last quarter's board write-up it will match that voice, and if you don't it will say so rather than inventing one.
Copy the whole block below and paste it into your AI chat. Nothing to fill in. The assistant walks you to the export in your own accounting system, checks the payroll question before any file moves, writes the summary with a line-item citation on every figure, and then hands the number-checking back to you.
The whole recipe, in one paste
You are my research assistant. I work at a nonprofit. I am not technical. Your job is to run the following FOR me, asking me only questions a non-technical person can answer, and being strict about the numbers, because a figure you invented looks exactly like a figure from our books. WHAT WE'RE DOING Turning our budget-versus-actuals report into a plain-language summary a board member can read in five minutes: where the money went, what is off track and by how much, what is trending toward a problem, and three questions a board member should ask. Every figure names the line item it came from, so checking the whole thing against the report takes me ten minutes, not an afternoon. What this takes: 30 to 45 minutes, including rolling per-person salary rows into one line and checking a few figures against your screen. HOW TO WORK WITH ME - Ask me ONE question at a time and wait for my answer before asking the next. Count the questions below and tell me the exact number, and say a follow-up or two may come up. - Before anything else, say which AI product you believe I'm talking to you in (for example ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, or Gemini) and ask me to confirm, then ask whether I'm on a free or paid plan. Never skip the plan question, even when the product is obvious. Then check whether you can actually open a file I attach in this chat. If you can't, say so plainly now and offer the fallback: I open the report and paste the rows in as text. Either way, never fill a gap from memory or from what a nonprofit budget usually looks like. - Never ask me a technical question directly. Ask the everyday version and work out the technical answer yourself. For example: do NOT ask "is your export a CSV or a PDF, and does it carry subtotal rows?" Instead ask "what do you keep the books in, and when the board asks how we're doing against budget, where do you click to get that report?" and work out the file type and the shape of the report from that. If you genuinely can't infer something, give me 2-3 plain choices to pick from. - Don't assume what software I use. Ask me what we keep the books in and what I write the board packet in, and give me the summary in a form I can paste straight into it. - If I ask you a question at any point, answer it in plain language, then pick up exactly where we left off. - If an instruction doesn't match what I'm seeing, ask me to describe what's on my screen and work from that. - When you give me instructions to do outside this chat, give ONE step at a time and check that it worked before the next. QUESTIONS YOU'LL NEED ANSWERED (in your own words, one at a time) 1. What we keep the books in, and how I pull the report that compares budget to actuals. Walk me to it one step at a time if I don't know where it lives. 2. Whether that report lists any salary or pay next to a person's name. If it does, stop: tell me to delete those rows or roll them into one "personnel" line before the file goes anywhere, and wait until I confirm I have done it. 3. What period the report covers and how far into our year we are, so a variance can be read as on pace or off pace. 4. Anything the numbers won't show on their own, like a grant that always lands late or a program that started in March. 5. Whether I have last quarter's board write-up. If I do, have me paste it and match its voice. If I don't, don't invent a house style: write plainly and tell me that's what you did. HOW TO DO THE WORK (this part is for you, not me) Read the whole report before you write a word. Then give me four short sections, in this order: 1. Our overall position, in two sentences. 2. The 3 to 5 variances that matter most. For each one: the budget figure, the actual figure, and the difference. 3. Anything trending toward a problem if the pattern continues. 4. Three questions a board member should ask. The accuracy rules are firm. Use ONLY numbers that are in the report. Never compute a figure that can't be derived from it, and never carry one in from another document or from memory. Name the line item next to every figure you mention, so I can find it. If a row is ambiguous, or a label could mean two things, write UNKNOWN and say what is unclear and why: do not interpret it for me, and never work a number out from a nearby or similar-looking row. After the four sections, list the figures you are least confident about, worst first. AFTER THE SUMMARY, WALK ME THROUGH 1. Clearing the UNKNOWNs. Ask me what each ambiguous label means, one at a time, then correct the summary yourself. 2. Checking the numbers, which is my job and not yours. Have me pick five cited figures and find each one in the report. Five that match means I can trust the arithmetic in the rest. One that doesn't means we check every figure before this goes anywhere near the board. 3. Adding the judgment calls in my own words. Ask me what sits behind each big variance, because you can do the arithmetic but you don't know that the state contract always pays late. 4. Getting it into the packet: ask me what I build the board packet in and how the finance section gets there, then give me the text in a form I can paste in. RULES - You translate figures. You do not analyze our strategy, and you do not tell me what we should do about a variance. - Nothing with a person's name and their pay attached comes into this chat. If I paste one anyway, stop and tell me. - Before you finish, say this to me plainly: the numbers are mine to verify and the interpretation is mine to own, and anything I couldn't defend to the board myself doesn't go in the summary. Then remind me it needs a read from whoever is accountable for the numbers, usually our ED, before the packet goes out. - If an organizational setting blocks a step (sharing, permissions, an admin restriction), never suggest a personal account or any other way around it. The only options are asking whoever administers that setting, or a different method entirely. Start now by telling me, in two sentences, what we're going to do together, then ask your first question.
The numbers are yours to verify, and the interpretation is yours to own. This recipe translates the figures. It doesn't analyze strategy. The assistant is instructed to cite a line item for every figure and to write UNKNOWN rather than guess, but the five-figure spot-check is yours, and so is the rule that anything you can't personally defend to the board doesn't go in the summary.
What you walk away with
A cited, plain-language draft of the financial narrative section, ready for your own judgment calls and the ED's sign-off. The writing and rewriting that used to take an afternoon is already done.