Monthly KPI packs and board decks drafted from live data, signed off by finance
A done-for-you KPI and board reporting automation is an AI workflow BufferSol builds to assemble your monthly KPI pack and quarterly board deck. Agents pull closed numbers from NetSuite, QuickBooks or Xero, pipeline from Salesforce or HubSpot and headcount from your HR system, apply your metric definitions, compare against budget and prior periods, and draft variance commentary. Finance reviews and signs off every figure and sentence before the pack goes to the leadership team or the board.
- Live in 3 to 6 weeks
- Works inside your current tools
- Your people approve what matters
Built for
All saas & technologyThe outcome
What changes for your business
The pack is ready earlier
A traced draft is ready soon after close, which gives finance time to review it and directors time to read it before the meeting.
Numbers that tie out
Each KPI is calculated the same way every month and traced to its source system, so the board sees a consistent series rather than reworked figures.
Commentary with substance
Draft explanations point to the deals, customers, cost lines or hires behind each variance, so finance refines the story instead of starting from a blank page.
Is this you?
Finance leads, FP&A teams and chiefs of staff at growing, venture-backed and private equity-backed companies who build a monthly KPI pack and a quarterly board deck mostly by hand.
- The board deck eats most of a week of finance time every quarter
- KPIs in the pack are pasted from a dozen exports and checked by eye
- Variance commentary gets written late at night before the deadline
- Directors ask questions that send the team back into the source systems after the meeting
- Last quarter's deck is the template, mistakes included
Today vs done for you
The current way, and the new way
What your team does by hand today, and what the automation does instead, step by step.
How it works today
- After close, FP&A exports the trial balance and P&L from NetSuite, QuickBooks or Xero
- Bookings and pipeline come from Salesforce or HubSpot, and headcount from Rippling, BambooHR or Workday
- Everything is pasted into a master Excel model and checked against last month by hand
- Charts are copied into PowerPoint or Google Slides and commentary is written section by section
- Department heads are chased for explanations, and the CFO reviews the whole deck the night before it goes out
- Board follow-up questions trigger fresh data pulls after the meeting
What it quietly costs you
- · Senior finance hours spent assembling the pack instead of analyzing the business
- · Copy-and-paste errors that surface in front of the board
- · Packs that arrive late, run long and look backward, leaving little room for the decisions directors are there to make
How it works done for you
- Once close is marked complete, the agent pulls actuals, budget and forecast from your ERP or planning tool, along with CRM, HR and product usage data
- It calculates each KPI from your agreed definitions, such as ARR, net revenue retention, gross margin, burn and runway, and compares it with prior periods and the budget
- Any figure that moves past the thresholds you set, or fails a tie-out to the general ledger, is flagged for review
- It builds the KPI pack and board deck in your own PowerPoint or Google Slides template, or the format your board portal expects
- It drafts variance commentary linked to the drivers, and asks department heads in Slack or Teams to confirm or correct their sections
- The CFO or FP&A lead reviews, edits and approves; only the approved version is uploaded to the board portal
- Each figure keeps a link to its source query, and edits and approvals are logged by version
Your people
What changes for your team
FP&A lead
Today
Assembling exports, rebuilding charts and chasing commentary from every department
Done for you
Reviewing flagged variances and building scenarios for the board discussion
CFO
Today
Checking every number the night before the deck is sent
Done for you
Reviewing a traced draft days earlier and focusing on the story and the asks
Department head
Today
Getting last-minute requests to explain a variance
Done for you
Confirming or correcting a drafted explanation of their numbers in Slack
The numbers
What it's worth to you
Estimate the time and cost you get back with your own numbers. We baseline the real figures in week 1 and track these KPIs from day one.
Example inputs · change them to yours
The automated share covers data pulls, KPI calculation, charts, tie-out checks and first-draft commentary; finance still reviews and approves every page.
Staff time back
23 hours a month
About 0.1 full-time people freed for higher-value work
Capacity reclaimed a month
$1,463
A year
$17,550
An estimate from your inputs only. In week 1 we measure your real baseline, so results are tracked against your own numbers.
Days from close to approved pack
Working days between close sign-off and pack approval, tracked against the last three cycles before launch
Finance hours per pack
Time logs from FP&A and the CFO for one cycle before launch and each cycle after
Corrections after distribution
Number of figures or statements corrected after the pack was sent
Board follow-up requests
Questions from directors that needed new data pulls, logged per meeting
Tie-out exceptions
Flags raised by ledger tie-out checks and how quickly each was resolved
35%
226 pages
86%
Works with the tools you already use
- NetSuite
- QuickBooks Online
- Xero
- Salesforce
- HubSpot
- Workday
- Rippling
- Excel
- PowerPoint
- Diligent
Guardrails built in
- Nothing reaches the board portal without sign-off from the CFO or a named approver
- Every KPI ties back to a source query, and to the general ledger where applicable
- Metric definitions are versioned, so any change in method is shown in the pack
- Board material is restricted to named finance and leadership users
- Read-only access to the ERP and CRM; the agent never posts journals or edits records
Why it hurts today
What teams say about this work
Common complaints from operators, reviewers and industry research.
Board members and governance professionals rate many board packs as weak or poor, and say the management information they receive is too operational and not strategic enough.
FP&A practitioners report that only a minority of their time goes to generating insight, while much of the rest goes to non-value-adding work such as collecting and validating data.
Most finance teams say they work extra hours to meet month-end reporting requirements, and many still close the books in Excel rather than dedicated software.
Finance teams commonly rely on spreadsheets to aggregate data by hand from disparate systems before any analysis can start.
How it works
From kickoff to live in 3 to 6 weeks
We do the build, the integrations and the rollout. Your team gives us access, reviews the pilot and approves go-live.
- 1
Week 1
Discovery and access
We map the workflow with your team, agree the outcomes and KPIs, measure today's baseline and get secure access to your tools.
- 2
Weeks 2–3
Build and connect
We build the agents and connect your systems, with your rules, approval steps, permissions and logging.
- 3
Weeks 3–5
Test and pilot
We test on your real history, then run a pilot on live work while your team reviews what the agent does.
- 4
Weeks 4–6
Go live and hand over
We roll out in stages, train your team, hand over dashboards and runbooks, and keep improving it with you.
Included with every automation
Executive Ask: ask your business anything
One plain-English assistant connected to the systems you run: CRM, helpdesk, ERP and accounting, HR, inbox and documents. Leaders get sourced answers in seconds and can trigger actions with approval. It respects everyone's existing permissions and logs every answer.
See Executive AskAsk it, for example
- Which KPIs moved outside our thresholds this month, and what drove each one?
- How does net revenue retention this quarter compare with the last four, by segment?
- Which questions did the board raise last quarter that we still haven't answered?
How long does it take to automate our board reporting?
Most clients are live in 3 to 6 weeks. We map every page of your current KPI pack and board deck to its source, agree metric definitions with the CFO, and connect your ERP, CRM and HR systems. Then we rebuild one or two past periods and compare them line by line with what you actually sent. Go-live follows once they tie out.
What does it cost?
The build is quoted after a short scoping call. It depends on how many systems and entities we pull from, how many custom metrics you track, whether you need multi-currency consolidation, and the format of your board portal. You get a fixed written scope before work starts, and the approval steps your auditors or investors expect are part of that scope.
Do we have to change our board deck template?
No. We build into your existing PowerPoint or Google Slides template, keeping your layout, fonts and chart styles. If your directors have asked for a shorter or more forward-looking pack, we can propose changes, such as a one-page summary of decisions needed, but the template stays your call. Nothing about the format changes unless you approve it.
Can it handle our own custom metrics?
Yes. Most companies track a few metrics that are specific to their model, such as cohort retention, utilization, contribution margin by product or revenue per location. We write each one down as a definition your finance team signs off, implement it as a tested calculation, and keep it versioned. If the definition ever changes, the pack notes the change.
What if the close is not finished on time?
The agent waits for your close checklist, in NetSuite, FloQast or a shared tracker, to be marked complete before it pulls actuals. If the close slips, it can produce a flagged preliminary draft so leadership can see early trends, but nothing marked final goes out until the CFO approves the closed numbers.
Pairs well with
Month-End Close & Reconciliation
Accounts reconciled every night, so close week is review instead of rework
See the outcomeFinancial Reporting & Cash Forecasting
Management reports and a rolling cash forecast built from live ledger data
See the outcomeExecutive Ask: Ask Your Business Anything
Ask any question about your business and get a sourced answer from every system
See the outcomeSources
- Board packs are getting worse. Here's why and how to fix it., Board Intelligence
- The 2024 FP&A Trends Survey Results: Key Insights and Findings Unveiled, FP&A Trends
- Controllers; Consolidation and financial reporting, Talentia Software
- Modern Financial Reporting & Automation - Datarails, Datarails
Get KPI & Board Reporting done for you
Tell us about your volumes and tools. A senior engineer replies within one business day with scope, timeline and cost.
Live in 3 to 6 weeks · Priced after a short call · Company emails only