Budget vs actual explainer
Compares your budget with the books for a month, quarter or the year so far, and explains the biggest differences.
How it works
Takes the budget loaded in Books (per ledger or ledger group, cost centre and month) and the posted vouchers, and shows budget, actual and variance for every line, ranked by amount and by percentage. Ask about one line and it looks at the entries behind it: which vendors' bills or which payroll months drove it, what is a one-off and what is a running cost, and what is only timing, like a prepaid journal or a month with no bill or accrual. It also shows how the full year ends at the current run rate. All figures are worked out from your books, not by the AI; the AI only writes the short explanation, and never sees vendor names. It reads only: nothing is posted or changed.
The report and the outlook are free. Explaining a line uses a few credits.
What it reads
- Budgets, ledgers, cost centres and posted vouchers in the companies you can see
- Bills and their vendors, payroll and expense-claim journals behind a line
When it starts
- When someone who can see financial reports or post journals asks how the budget is going
What it can do
What it never does
- Post or change a voucher, change a budget or write to anyone
Safe by design
- One assistant, many agents. Ask the Employee assistant in the app or on WhatsApp; it calls the agents your company has hired that you may use.
- Hired, not switched on. Your admin hires each agent from the catalogue and chooses who can use it.
- Agents propose, people confirm. Anything that changes data, like a leave request, waits for a person to confirm it.
- Same access as the user. An agent sees only what the person asking is allowed to see.
- AI processing in India. Agents run on models hosted in India (AWS Mumbai).
- Budgets and a hard stop. Set a monthly credit limit per agent; agents stop when credits run out.
- Every run recorded. Admins see each run, the credits it used and what it did.
Frequently asked questions
What does the Budget vs actual explainer do?
Takes the budget loaded in Books (per ledger or ledger group, cost centre and month) and the posted vouchers, and shows budget, actual and variance for every line, ranked by amount and by percentage. Ask about one line and it looks at the entries behind it: which vendors' bills or which payroll months drove it, what is a one-off and what is a running cost, and what is only timing, like a prepaid journal or a month with no bill or accrual. It also shows how the full year ends at the current run rate. All figures are worked out from your books, not by the AI; the AI only writes the short explanation, and never sees vendor names. It reads only: nothing is posted or changed.
Can the Budget vs actual explainer change data on its own?
No. It never does the following: post or change a voucher, change a budget or write to anyone.
How much does the Budget vs actual explainer cost?
The report and the outlook are free. Explaining a line uses a few credits.. Credits are a paid add-on to any flowwork.ai plan at ₹100 (US$ 1.19) per 1,000 credits, and new companies get 500 free trial credits for 30 days.
Where is the data processed?
Agents run on AI models hosted in India and see only what the person using them is allowed to see. Admins see every run and the credits it used.
Other agents
Reads a bank statement PDF into Books, so you can check the lines and import them.
Suggests which GSTR-2B lines go with which purchase bills, when the rules couldn't pair them.
Reads a vendor bill's photo or PDF and fills a draft bill in Books for you to check.