Blog · Board and management reporting · Finance and FP&A teams
What a monthly commercial pack for a CEO or board should contain when every number has to be defensible: seven tables, the identity that ties each to the next, the one page of movements that replaces the narrative, and why a pack built this way takes an hour to produce on the first working day instead of a week.
A monthly commercial pack is usually thirty slides, assembled over a week, and the first question in the meeting is why slide nine does not agree with slide four. This guide sets out a pack of seven tables in which every total ties to the next, so that question cannot be asked.
| # | Table | Reconciles to |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Revenue by region, month and year to date | The ledger |
| 2 | Revenue by rep, within region | Table 1 |
| 3 | Coverage by rep: accounts touched over accounts assigned | Table 2's rep list |
| 4 | Share of wallet by segment, with the gap | Table 1's revenue, as the numerator |
| 5 | Pipeline coverage by stage, per region | Region list from table 1 |
| 6 | Forecast bridge, last month to this month | Last month's table 6 closing figure |
| 7 | Movements: every measure past its threshold | Tables 1 to 6, by citation |
Table 1 total = ledger revenue Table 2 total per region = table 1 row Table 3 rep list = table 2 rep list Table 4 numerator = table 1 total for the segments in scope Table 6 opening = last month's table 6 closing
Every one is checked before the pack is issued, and a failed identity is a line on the movements page, not a footnote.
One line per movement:
| Measure | Where | From | To | Threshold | Citation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coverage | R-04, North | 71% | 54% | 10 pts | Table 3, row 4 |
| Share of wallet | Mid segment | 31% | 27% | 3 pts | Table 4, row 2 |
| Forecast | Company | $4.1m | $3.7m | $250,000 | Table 6, bridge lines 3 and 7 |
That page is the narrative. A reader who wants the story reads it; a reader who wants the evidence follows the citation. Nothing on it is unattributed.
| Day | Step |
|---|---|
| Last working day | Exports dropped: ledger, CRM, pipeline |
| First working day, morning | Tables computed, identities checked, movements listed |
| First working day, afternoon | Movements read, pack issued |
The week that most companies spend on the pack is spent on reconciling numbers that were never going to agree because they came from different queries. Seven tables from one set of definitions agree by construction.
Tables from different sources. The ledger for revenue and the CRM for revenue are two numbers. One source per measure, stated.
Narrative without citation. "The north had a difficult month" is not a finding. Coverage in the north fell 17 points at rep R-04 is.
Drill-downs in the pack. Thirty slides. Keep seven; make the rest available.
Definition changed silently. Share of wallet with a new wallet method looks like a movement. Version it and note it.
Mapped once, the ledger, CRM and pipeline exports produce the seven tables, the identity checks and the movements page on the first working day. Covirage builds this from the exports as they are. The board reporting solution describes the setup, and the board narrative guide covers how the movements page is written.
Because a reader who can trace seven tables to the ledger trusts them, and a reader given twenty stops checking. Every other view is a drill-down available on request, computed from the same tables.
On the movements page, one line per movement, each citing the table and the row it came from. Commentary that does not cite a row is opinion, and the pack keeps it out.
The exports are dropped on the last day, the tables compute from stated definitions, and the identities are checked automatically. What remains is reading the movements page. The week most companies spend is spent reconciling, and the identities do that.