Reporting & Analysis
Financial reporting and analysis that builds itself. And holds up in the boardroom.
Financial reporting and analysis is the practice of tracking business performance against plan, explaining variances, and turning the numbers into decisions. Here is how modern finance teams run it, and where AI now does the first pass.
May ran $160K over plan; cloud & software drove it. Every tile reads from one governed model. Trace to source →
Why Cube
Reporting answers first. Proof attached.
Cube is the Agentic Finance Layer: it unifies your ERP, CRM, and HRIS into one governed model and runs financial reporting and analysis inside Excel, Google Sheets, Slack, Teams, and your AI assistants. Reporting on one governed model changes what the monthly rhythm looks like. Three things finance teams get back.
Answers before the meeting starts.
The variance is explained and the forecast is current before anyone asks. The first pass is done when you sit down.
One version of every number.
Excel, Google Sheets, dashboards, and the board deck all read from the same governed model, so the answer is the same in every room.
AI you can put in front of the auditors.
Every insight traces back to the transaction or assumption behind it. When someone asks for backup, it is one click away.
The report is the easy part. Trusting it is the hard part.
The mechanism
Reporting & Analysis in Cube.
Actuals and operating data flow into one governed model, rules and definitions apply once, and every report, dashboard, and answer draws from the same place. Cube connects hundreds of source systems to make that first step routine.
Cube
One governed model behind every report.
- Maps every account onceAccounts and dimensions land in one model
- Applies your rulesEach metric defined once, used everywhere
- Keeps figures traceableEvery number drills to its source transactions
- Refreshes as actuals landPacks and decks update from live data
In your spreadsheet
Reporting that runs on live actuals.
Fetch actuals into the workbook your team already trusts, keep plan columns editable, and publish back to the governed model. The pack stops being rebuilt and starts being reviewed.
| $K | Jan · Actuals | Feb · Actuals | Mar · Actuals | Apr · Plan | May · Plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 4,180 | 4,260 | 4,395 | 4,450 | 4,520 |
| COGS | 1,045 | 1,065 | 1,099 | 1,113 | 1,130 |
| Gross profit | 3,135 | 3,195 | 3,296 | 3,337 | 3,390 |
| Operating expenses | 3,010 | 3,065 | 3,240 | 3,150 | 3,195 |
| EBITDA | 125 | 130 | 56 | 187 | 195 |
In your browser
One dashboard for every audience.
The Exec Storyboard reads from the same governed model as the sheet above, so every tile refreshes the moment the numbers do.
Commentary · drafted for review
March opex closed at $3,240K, $160K over the $3,080K budget. Cloud & software drove $96K of the overage, with the $618K line up on usage-based infrastructure.
Opex · Mar actual
$3,240K
vs $3,080K budgetVariance vs budget
+$160K
+5.2% · driver: cloud & softwareBudget to actual walk
Mar · $K · axis starts at $3,000K · amber = over budget
Opex mix · Mar
- Payroll & benefits$1,941K
- Cloud & software$618K
- Facilities & other$485K
- Travel & ent.$196K
$K · sums to $3,240K · amber = flagged driver
Opex by month
$K · Jan-Mar actual, Apr-May plan · axis starts at $3,000K
Exec Storyboard · Mar 2026 · refreshed as actuals land · every tile opens to its transactions
Budget to actual
Where did the $160K opex variance come from?
The March budget-to-actual walk: three drivers carry a $3,080K opex budget to $3,240K actual, with cloud & software flagged at +$96K, and every bar drills to the transactions behind it.
The first pass is done before the meeting starts.
AI at Cube
Four FP&Agent teams for reporting and analysis. One superagent.
Charlie, Cube’s superagent, plans the work, orchestrates every team, and returns the decision-ready answer. For reporting and analysis, the first pass lands with the Analysts: variance, root cause, and ad-hoc answers, drillable to the transaction. Meet all of Cube’s FP&Agents.
Plans the work, orchestrates every team, and returns the decision-ready answer.
Cube proposes.Finance approves.
Reporting and analysis, everywhere work happens.
Connect to Cube's single source of truth from where you work every day, without ever having to learn another tool.
Cube Workspace
One command center for planning, reporting, and analysis. No tab-hopping.
Explore the Workspace →| Account | Plan | Actual | Var |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marketing | $1.20M | $1.34M | +$142K |
| Events | $310K | $402K | +$92K |
Excel & Google Sheets
Your model stays yours. Cube keeps every cell current and traceable.
Explore spreadsheets →
PowerPoint & Google Slides
When the numbers change, the deck changes. No re-pastes before the board meeting.
Explore presentations →AI assistants
Every insight maps back to the GL, so AI answers are safe to act on.
Explore AI via MCP →
Security & governance
Can you trust the numbers, and the AI?
Reporting is only useful if everyone believes it. Cube is governed by design, and the same controls apply to every agent. Read the full security overview.
Read-only by default
Connections to source systems read; they never write back to your GL.
Role-based permissions
People and agents see exactly the accounts, entities, and scenarios they should.
Full audit trail
Every fetch, publish, and agent action is logged and reviewable.
Your data stays yours
Customer data is never used to train shared models.
A number you can trace is a number you can defend.
Trace to the transaction
Drill-through reporting: every number opens.
Any figure in any report drills to the accounts and transactions behind it. Here is the flagged cloud line from the report above, all the way down.
| Mar 03 | Salesforce | platform licenses | NetSuite | $28,400 |
| Mar 11 | Datadog | annual true-up | NetSuite | $41,900 |
| Mar 27 | Figma | seat expansion | NetSuite | $9,300 |
| + 44 more transactions | ||||
“We went from updating 50+ Excel files and managing 1.75 million formulas across a 200-tab workbook to filling in two fields on one template, which gives us back about 200 hours a month.”
5-star verified review on G2 · multi-location retail · May 2026What finance teams say
Reporting and analysis results, in customers’ words.
Thousands of finance professionals at leading companies rely on Cube to tell the story behind their numbers. Cube holds a 4.5/5 rating across 144 reviews on G2.
The close and the pack
“Our monthly close schedule has been accelerated by more than a week, and with the help of Cube we’re consistently on time.”
5-star G2 review
Variance analysis
“Cube has enabled us to drill into budget and forecast-to-actual variances with a level of detail we simply couldn’t achieve before.”
5-star G2 review
Ad hoc reporting
“The biggest selling point was our ability to create custom reports on the fly in seconds.”
4.5-star G2 review
The problem
Why is reporting and analysis so hard?
The work is rarely hard because the math is hard. It is hard because the data lives in a dozen systems and the month is shorter than the to-do list.
The pack eats the month
Ten days of exports and cross-checks leave three for actual analysis. Cube refreshes the pack from live actuals.
Every report tells a different story
Marketing spend differs by report because each defines it differently. One governed definition per metric ends the debate.
Variance commentary starts from zero
Explaining what moved means hours of drilling and chat archaeology. Cube drafts the first pass for your review.
Ad hoc questions derail the week
Every executive question becomes a two-day detour. Self-serve answers on governed data give analysts their week back.
Numbers nobody can defend
One challenged figure in a board meeting undoes a quarter of credibility. Every Cube number traces to the transaction.
Insight arrives after the decision
By the time the report ships, the moment to act has passed. Cube flags material movements as actuals land.
The shift
What changes when reporting and analysis is automated?
The workflow keeps every step. What changes is who does the assembly, and how much of the month is left for judgment.
| Workflow | Manual | Automated with Cube |
|---|---|---|
| Close handoff | ✗Exports, CSVs, and copy-paste from the GL after every close. | ✓Actuals land in the governed model as the close finalizes. |
| Building the pack | ✗Rebuilt every month, with formatting eating days. | ✓Templates refresh from the model and the formatting survives. |
| Variance analysis | ✗Hunt through the GL for drivers, then write commentary from scratch. | ✓Drivers surface automatically and a first-pass commentary is drafted for review. |
| Ad hoc questions | ✗Each request interrupts an analyst for hours or days. | ✓Anyone asks in Excel/Google Sheets or Slack/Teams and gets a governed, traceable answer. |
| Consistency | ✗Each report defines metrics its own way. | ✓One definition per metric, applied everywhere. |
| Audit trail | ✗The story lives with whoever built the file. | ✓Every figure traces to the transaction behind it. |
The report earns trust. The explanation earns influence.
Reporting shows what happened. Analysis explains why.
The definition
What is financial reporting and analysis?
Financial reporting and analysis
Financial reporting and analysis is the practice of tracking business performance against plan, explaining variances, and turning the numbers into decisions. It covers the recurring reports finance delivers each month, the variance analysis that explains what changed, and the ad hoc questions that follow.
The two halves depend on each other. Reporting earns trust with accurate, consistent numbers, and analysis earns influence by explaining them. Cube runs both on one governed model, so every report, answer, and insight ties back to the same source.
Actuals, plans, and operating data
performance tracking · variance · insight
Every company reports. The ones that learn from the report move first.
Six flavors
What are the types of financial reporting and analysis?
Most finance teams run six recurring flavors of the work, all of which should draw from the same governed numbers.
Management reporting
The monthly pack for leadership: P&L, KPIs, and commentary against plan.
Board reporting
The quarterly narrative for directors and investors, built on the same governed numbers.
Variance analysis
The routine that explains actuals against budget or forecast. Read the full guide to variance analysis.
Ad hoc reporting
One-off answers to one-off questions. See how ad hoc reporting works when the data is governed.
KPI & dashboard reporting
Always-on metrics leaders check between cycles, refreshed from live actuals.
Financial statement reporting
Income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow, consolidated across entities and currencies.
See every report type run on your data.
One demo covers the pack, the variance story, and the questions in between.
The five habits
Financial reporting and analysis best practices.
The strongest reporting teams share five habits, and none of them require new software to start.
Define every metric once
Agree the definition of ARR, churn, and spend in one place, and let every report inherit it.
Pair every variance with a driver
A flag without a cause is homework. Run a repeatable variance analysis workflow that names the driver and the action.
Keep the lineage visible
Any number leadership sees should open to the transactions behind it.
Automate the recurring, protect the analytical
Let the pack build itself so analyst hours go to the why.
Answer questions where they are asked
Meet executives in Slack/Teams, Excel/Google Sheets, and the board deck with the same governed numbers.
The buyer's checklist
What to look for in reporting and analysis software.
Six criteria separate platforms that report from platforms that explain. Legacy FP&A platforms move reporting into a proprietary UI, and code-heavy tools leave finance waiting on scripts. Cube runs reporting, variance analysis, and ad hoc answers on one governed model inside the spreadsheets and chat tools your team already uses. Each criterion is worth testing on your own data before you buy.
Connects to your actual stack
Hundreds of source systems, with your ERP, CRM, and HRIS flowing into one model. Cube's integrations cover the major platforms.
One governed model
Definitions, rules, and hierarchies live once, and every surface inherits them.
Native to your spreadsheets
Excel and Google Sheets as live, governed surfaces rather than export destinations.
AI that shows its work
Agents that cite the transactions behind every answer, with finance approving anything that changes the model.
Drill-through to the transaction
Every rolled-up figure opens down to the source entry, in front of the board if it has to.
Security your auditors recognize
SOC 2 Type II, SSO, role-based permissions, and a complete audit trail.
What finance teams ask before they switch.
Financial reporting that explains itself.
See what moved, why it moved, and the transaction behind it, on a demo built around your reporting workflow.
30 minutes, personalized to your stack.
