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The board pack is the same document every month, and it is only as good as the close underneath it. This example asks the close question first, gets a verdict with the exceptions spelled out, and then asks for the pack. Forty seconds later a three-page PDF lands in Drive with a written summary of what is in it.
The recording has narration without captions; the section below is a step-by-step text account of everything it shows. Example Group, its entities, and every figure are synthetic. Nothing in the video is a target or a benchmark.
  1. From month-end to board pack, with any AI assistant via MCP.
  2. First, one question: is August closed, and is anything missing?
  3. Then: build the board pack. Forty seconds of work, and it lands in Drive.
  4. Revenue one point two two million, EBITDA nineteen k ahead of plan, and the reasons behind both.
  5. Three pages: performance, the variance behind the beat, eliminations and the cash bridge.
  6. Ready to share, every number traceable to the ledger.
  7. Control.dev. Your board pack, from a closed month, in one ask.

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What happens in the recording

  1. The user asks: “Is August closed? does everything look good or are we missing something?” The client answers from Control: all three entities have their ledgers locked and bank balances reconciled to statements at 31 August. Intercompany reconciles apart from one item, a licence fee the US entity booked a month late, already corrected by accrual with no effect on group EBITDA. Subsidiaries are translated at the average and closing rates, with the resulting translation adjustment booked to equity.
  2. It names two things worth knowing that do not block the close: model and API costs well over budget, which pulls gross margin below plan, and two overdue US invoices that pushed days sales outstanding to 41. Verdict: nothing missing, ready to build the pack.
  3. The user asks: “ok, build the board pack”. The client works through its tasks and tools for about forty seconds. The document opens in a Drive panel next to the chat, with a short summary of the headline numbers and what each page covers.
  4. The pack itself is three pages. Page one is the performance overview: KPI strip, the consolidated P&L against prior month, plan and prior year, and the key drivers behind the month. Page two explains where the EBITDA beat comes from, by cost centre, by cost nature and by entity, with the counterparty-level variances behind each line. Page three shows the intercompany eliminations, the net position booked to equity, and the cash bridge from opening to closing cash.

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Try it in your workspace

  1. Connect an AI client with MCP. Read access is enough to build the pack.
  2. Give the client somewhere to deliver the file, such as a Drive or SharePoint connector in the same client, or let it hand you the file directly.
  3. Encode your pack in a skill: the pages, the KPIs, the comparisons each table must carry, and the tone. Start from the monthly management report skill.
  4. Ask the close question before the build question, every month. The exceptions the client lists are the ones you should be able to defend at the board.
  5. Ask for the pack, then spot-check each table against the statement view in Control it was built from.

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Ask the close question first

A pack built on an open month is a pack you will re-issue. In the recording the client does not just say “closed”: it lists the intercompany timing item and how it was corrected, the FX treatment, the cost line that is over budget, and the receivables that moved DSO. That is the readiness gate. Put it in the skill as a rule: no pack until the close check passes, and every exception it finds becomes a sentence in the pack.
Example prompts: “Is August closed across all entities, and is anything missing before the board pack?” “Build the August board pack from the template in this project and put it in the board folder.” “For each table in the pack, tell me which Control statement and layout it came from.”

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Troubleshooting

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The pack was built on an open month

Ask the close question first and make it a rule in the skill. If a period is still open in an accounting system, the client should say so and stop, not estimate.

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A table does not match Control

First check that the figures are current: the source synchronisation for the affected entity completed and covers the period, and the statement view in Control already shows the refreshed totals, since new data reaches statements only after downstream processing. Then ask which statement, layout and period the table was built from, and open that view. Remaining differences are usually a layout choice, such as eliminations included or not, or a currency conversion setting.

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The file does not appear in Drive

The delivery connector, not Control, is the failing part. Check that the client’s Drive connector is authorised for the target folder, or ask for the file directly and upload it yourself.

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Next steps

Monthly management report skill

The sample skill to start your pack template from.

Monthly close review

Run the ledger review before the close question.

Quarterly BvA report

The deeper variance package for quarter ends.

Use skills with Control MCP

How skills shape what the client builds.