The monthly financial reporting package, built from the trial balance

1. Executive summary: five or six numbers and three sentences.
2. Income statement: the month, year to date, the same month last year, and budget where there is one.
3. Balance sheet, compared with the prior month end.
4. Cash: balances and the month's movement, and runway if the company is burning cash.
5. Flux analysis: every line that moved past your threshold, with the reason.
6. A/R aging: current, 1 to 30, 31 to 60, 61 to 90, over 90.
7. KPIs: gross margin, operating margin, DSO, DPO, current ratio.

A common rule: explain any income statement line that moved more than 10% and more than a fixed amount, say $5,000, against the prior month or prior year. The two-part test keeps tiny lines with large percentages out. Each explanation has three parts: the number, the comparison and the reason.

For an invented business, subcontractors is the one line to explain: in this case, two projects used outside crews while a crew lead was on leave. Magic MIS's commentary picks out the material movements by its own threshold and drafts the number, the comparison and the ledgers behind them; a reason only the client knows, like the crew lead's leave, is the reviewer's to add. A draft that tries to write its own number is rejected.

• US GAAP layout. The workbook can present statements in a US GAAP style, for management use, not audit or filing.
• Accrual or cash basis. Many small clients keep cash-basis books. Say which on the cover; flux on a cash-basis income statement often reflects payment timing, not activity.
• Fiscal year. Usually January to December; set it once per company.
• Exports. QuickBooks Online and Desktop, Xero, NetSuite and others, through their trial balance export. See QuickBooks and NetSuite.

Re-pasting the trial balance into last month's workbook, mapping new GL accounts, fixing broken links, redrawing charts. Magic MIS places each GL account once per client and remembers it; next month you upload the new trial balance and the package refreshes, with only new accounts to place.

You get a checked Excel workbook with live formulas, a dashboard changed by chat with Undo, written commentary and Where to act (suggestions to consider, not tax, legal or audit advice), and a read-only link for the client that opens on a phone. Prepaid credits, no subscription, and every action shows its price before it runs: see the credit packs. It works in a desktop browser.