Monthly Variance Analyst
Produce LP-ready variance analysis that classifies every material variance and looks forward.
★ 105 on GitHub0 downloads on LenderSkills
Install it in one line — paste a single command into Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor and it writes the skill into your project.
Free, and about thirty seconds: a work email and a six-digit code.
Downloading shares your name, firm, role, and email with Avi Hacker, J.D.. That introduction is what keeps every skill here free.
What this skill does
Turns actual-vs-budget into commentary an investor can act on.
What it does
- Compares actuals to budget monthly or year to date
- Classifies every material variance as timing, permanent, or one-time
- Writes institutional-grade commentary rather than raw numbers
- Closes with a forward look instead of stopping at the past month
When to use it
- Use this skill when you have a stabilized U. S.
What to have ready
- Property name, unit count, class, and market
- Reporting period (month and/or YTD through the cutoff date)
- Actuals by line item — current month and YTD — on a stated basis (cash or accrual)
- Approved original annual budget by line item (never overwritten)
- Current full-year reforecast, if one has been produced, as a separate column
- Line-item basis for each actual (cash vs accrual) where it diverges from budget
- …and a few more items the skill will ask for as it goes
How to use it
- Download it with the button above. You'll sign in with a work email — that's how the creator knows who is using their skill.
- Copy the install prompt from the "Run it in Claude" box, and paste it into Claude along with the file. Claude installs the skill, fills in your firm's details where the file has
[BRACKETED]placeholders, and runs a quick test with you. - Then just ask in plain English. Claude picks the skill up on its own when a request matches it. Anything it still needs, it asks you for — it won't invent a number.
"Use the Monthly Variance Analyst skill — I've got property name, unit count, class, and market."
What you get back
A structured report covering period summary, top 5 variance drivers, line-item variance table, commentary, mixed-variance splits, and forward-look / reforecast adjustments. You get it as readable analysis plus the underlying data, so it can feed straight into a memo or another skill.
Good to know
- Output quality tracks input quality. A missing figure is flagged as missing — it is never estimated to fill a gap.
- Every draft is a starting point for your own review, not a finished decision.
- Runs anywhere Claude does: the Claude app, Claude Desktop, or Claude Code.
Source & credit
Imported from the open-source cre-agent-skills library by Avi Hacker, J.D. (github.com/ahacker-1/cre-agent-skills), Apache-2.0 license. The author's content is unmodified apart from a legal disclaimer appended at the end of the package. Full credit to the author.
Legal disclaimer
This skill drafts; it does not decide. Its output is not legal, tax, accounting, appraisal, or investment advice, and using it creates no attorney-client, fiduciary, or advisory relationship. Nothing it produces is a commitment to lend or an offer to sell a security. Verify every number, date, citation, and conclusion against the source documents, and have a qualified professional licensed in the relevant jurisdiction review the work before you rely on it or send it to a borrower, investor, counterparty, or regulator. Laws, rates, and market data change. The final work product is yours.
Inside this skill
The actual file you get. Members can read it in full before saving it.
Monthly Variance Analyst
Produce an LP-ready monthly or YTD variance analysis that compares actuals to budget, classifies every material variance as Timing / Permanent / One-Time per the pack taxonomy, and delivers institutional-grade commentary with a forward-look.
When to Use This Skill
Use this skill when you have a stabilized U.S. multifamily property's operating actuals (month and/or YTD) alongside an approved budget, and you need to produce the variance package that accompanies a monthly flash report, a quarterly asset review (QAR), or an ad-hoc LP update. It is the right starting point whenever the question is "what actually happened vs plan, why, and what does it mean for the rest of the year" — not for building the budget (see Annual Operating Budget Builder) and not for writing the full QAR narrative (see Quarterly Asset Review Writer).
What You'll Need to Provide
- Property name, unit count, class, and market
- Reporting period (month and/or YTD through the cutoff date)
- Actuals by line item — current month and YTD — on a stated basis (cash or accrual)
- Approved original annual budget by line item (never overwritten)
- Current full-year reforecast, if one has been produced, as a separate column
- Line-item basis for each actual (cash vs accrual) where it diverges from budget
- Materiality override, if the operator uses something other than the lesser of 10% OR $25,000
- Operator storm-cost add-back policy (add back to normalized NOI or not — MAA-style no-add-back is a peer-disagreement worth confirming)
- Named catastrophe, litigation, tax-refund, or other one-off events in the period
- Sign convention the operator uses for expense variances (Actual − Budget or Budget − Actual)
Mission
Reading the full skill counts as a download. The contributor receives your name, company, and email.
Ratings & reviews
No written reviews yet. If you run this on a live file, say how it went. The next lender reading this page is deciding whether to trust it.
Examination record
Run it in Claude
- Copy the install command above
- Paste it into Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor
- It writes the skill in, fills in your firm’s details, and test-runs it with you
Prefer the file? The prompt above is for a package you already downloaded.
Details
More from Avi Hacker, J.D.
Imported from their public repository with attribution. Their other skills, and where to find the original, are on their contributor page.