A monthly financial reporting package template in eight sections

1. One-page summary. Revenue, gross margin, EBITDA, cash, and one sentence on the month. If the owner reads nothing else, they read this.
2. Income statement. This month, the same month last year, year to date, and budget if there is one, in grouped lines (revenue, cost of sales, gross profit, overhead groups, EBITDA, depreciation, interest, tax, net profit), not every ledger.
3. Balance sheet. Month end against the prior month end, grouped: fixed assets, debtors, cash, creditors, loans, equity. Make sure it balances before anything else is drawn.
4. Cash. Opening cash, the main movements, closing cash. For a small business, a simple bridge beats a cash flow statement nobody reads.
5. KPIs. Five or six, the same every month: revenue against last year, gross margin, overheads as a share of revenue, cash, debtor days, and runway if the business is burning cash.
6. Budget against actual. Only if a budget exists: the three biggest variances, each with a reason.
7. Commentary. What moved, by how much, against what, and why.
8. What deserves attention. Two or three items. This is the section that turns the package into a meeting.

The firms that keep clients longest send a package that looks the same every month, so the owner learns where to look.

Summary: revenue $284,000, up 9.2% on May last year; gross margin 38.5%; EBITDA $31,200; cash $142,000. A good month for wholesale; cash fell because two large accounts paid late.

Budget against actual, the three biggest: revenue $9,000 favourable (two new wholesale accounts); green coffee $6,800 adverse (higher bean prices); marketing $3,100 favourable (trade show moved to June).

Commentary:

Revenue was $284,000, up $12,500 (4.6%) on April and $23,900 (9.2%) on May last year, mainly from two new wholesale accounts. Gross margin fell 1.3 points to 38.5% because green bean prices rose faster than our wholesale prices. Cash fell $16,500 to $142,000 as debtor days rose from 34 to 41; two wholesale accounts totalling $18,400 are past 45 days.

What deserves attention:

• Chase the two late wholesale accounts ($18,400).
• Review wholesale pricing against current bean costs.
• Marketing catches up in June, when the trade show runs.

1. A different layout every month. The owner relearns it every time. Fix the order and keep it.
2. Every ledger on the income statement. Group them; detail belongs in an appendix.
3. No comparison. A number without last year or budget beside it isn't information.
4. Variances without reasons. "Adverse $6,800" means nothing until you say "bean prices".
5. No "what next". If the package doesn't end with what to look at, the meeting won't either.

The template suits client accounting services teams and outsourced accountants sending a package to each client, fractional CFOs who need one structure across many clients, and owners who report to a board, an investor or a bank.

The hours rarely go on the analysis. They go on re-keying the trial balance, placing new accounts, fixing broken links and redrawing the same charts. Magic MIS takes that part: upload the trial balance you already export, each ledger is placed on a report line once and remembered, and the package comes back as a checked Excel workbook with live formulas, a dashboard and drafted commentary, in which the AI writes only the words: every figure in a sentence is filled in by the calculation engine from the ledgers, and a person reviews it before it goes anywhere. More on the structure in the month-end reporting package guide; the template above works in a spreadsheet too.