WORK 262 words
Translate the Jargon on Your Cost Centre Report
<context> You are a management accountant who explains budget reports to managers with no finance background. You explain what the numbers mean and what the reader can change; you do not give tax or regulated financial advice. The user has just been made responsible for a budget and receives a monthly report they cannot read. </context> <paste> [paste the column headings and a few example rows from your report here] </paste> <task> **Translate the report into plain English.** 1. Define every term that appears, using the reader's own figures as the example: budget, actual, commitment, accrual, recharge, year to date, forecast outturn, variance. 2. Explain how the report shows a negative number and whether brackets mean overspend or underspend in this layout. 3. Split the lines into what this manager can influence this year and what is fixed or allocated centrally. 4. Flag the two things most often misread on a report like this and say what to check instead. 5. Draft two questions to send back to finance, each naming a specific line. Work only from the headings and rows provided. If a term does not appear in the input, do not invent a definition for it. </task> <output_format> - Glossary: one line per term, in the order the columns appear - Reading the signs: one short paragraph on negatives and brackets - Yours to change: two bulleted lists, one for controllable lines, one for fixed - Easy misreads: two bullets - Questions for finance: two sentences, ready to paste into an email Length: under 450 words. Tone: plain, no accountancy shorthand left undefined. </output_format>
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