Stop 6 of 8 · Weekly
The report clients read
Three paragraphs an owner actually finishes: what changed, why, and what to watch, with a chart and no advice Claude cannot give.
The note that gets read
Farid sends eight monthly packages. The statements go in every time and, for years, that was the whole package. Owners would open them, look at one number, and email him a question the P&L already answered.
The three-paragraph note in front of the statements changed that. It takes him about six minutes per client now, and the questions that come back are better ones.
The three paragraphs
What changed. Revenue, gross margin after fees and shipping, cash, and the one balance sheet line that moved. Numbers with the prior month beside them, no adjectives.
Why. Each movement tied to something in the file. Advertising is up because two campaigns ran the whole month rather than half of it. Margin is down because refunds doubled. If Claude cannot point at the lines, the paragraph says the movement is unexplained, which is a perfectly good sentence to send.
What to watch. Not advice. A number that is trending, a liability that is growing, a question that needs the owner's answer before next month. The difference between "your sales tax payable is up 40 percent for the second month" and "you should register in Colorado" is the difference between Farid's job and a job he is not doing for free in a monthly note.
The one file rule
The note is only as safe as the exports it was built from. Farid attaches the two P&Ls and the two balance sheets and nothing else, and the prompt says to use only those. Without that fence, a draft that cannot find a cause in the file will invent a plausible one, and plausible reads exactly like true to an owner who is skimming on a phone.
Here are CL-02's P&L and balance sheet for this month and the same two for last month. Write three short paragraphs for the owner, who does not read financial statements. Paragraph one: what changed, with this month and last month side by side, covering revenue, gross margin after Shopify fees and shipping, cash, and the balance sheet line that moved most. Paragraph two: why each of those moved, naming the specific accounts and amounts in the exports that caused it. If you cannot tie a movement to lines in the files, say it is unexplained. Paragraph three: what to watch next month, as observations only. Do not recommend a tax treatment, a filing change, a financing move or a price change. No adjectives about performance. List at the end anything you assumed. [upload the four exports]
From the same exports, build a chart artifact showing revenue, gross margin after fees and total operating expenses by month for the last six months, using the figures in the files only. Clean, large labels, no gridlines, one colour per series. I will drop it into the package.
That draft is written for someone who reads statements. CL-02's owner does not. Rewrite it at the same length with no accounting terms at all: no accruals, no gross margin, no payable. Say the same true things in the words she uses about her own business.
The note goes in front of the statements, not instead of them. The numbers still have to be right, which is why this stop comes after the close and not before it.