Budget monitoring
Compare actual spend to the approved plan each period and surface the overrun while there is still budget left to move.
No ready-made setup for this job yet.
Describe the job in a sentence, the way you would brief a colleague: when it should happen, what to check, and what to hand you. That sentence is the automation.
The job, and what good looks like.
A department head usually learns they are forty percent over plan three weeks before the budget meeting, because the last comparison of actual to budget was run in December. The monthly variance pack is kept by one person in a spreadsheet, and that person is on leave more often than not. This workflow rebuilds the comparison on a fixed schedule, taking actuals from the ledger and the plan from the approved budget, grouped by department, by cost center, and by the person who can act on it. Lines that cross a set threshold are pulled out with the size of the gap attached, and each is marked as a one-off or as a run rate that will repeat. Anything posted to the wrong cost center is separated out first, because a coding error and a genuine overrun need different conversations. The pack reaches each owner before anyone else sees it, so the fix starts with the person who can make it. A person still decides which variances are acceptable and who absorbs them.
When it is handled
- Variance pack issued within two days of close
- Overruns flagged before the spend happens
- Every variance carries a named owner
- Plan changes recorded with an approver
Works with tools like
- Pigment
- NetSuite
- Metabase
- Validis
- SAP S/4HANA
You stay in charge.
At every step.
It does the checking. You approve what gets paid and posted.
- Nothing paid or posted on its own
Payments, journals and approvals stay with you. It prepares them and flags what doesn't match.
- Undo what you don't want
Every step is recorded, and a file it changed can be put back.
- Only the books you open to it
Each automation reaches only the folders and systems you connect for it.
Before you download.
- Where does it run?
- On your Mac or Windows computer, in the background. It keeps working after you close its window, and only reaches the folders and apps you connect for each automation.
- How does it connect to our CRM and other tools?
- Through each app's own connection where it offers one, signed in once by you, or by using the app in a browser the way you would. Each automation gets only the connections you give it, and the tools a page names are examples you can swap for your own.
- Does it run when my computer is asleep?
- It keeps your computer awake while a job runs and just before a scheduled one. While the computer is closed or off, nothing runs; when it wakes, it checks the inbox, calendar and other sources it watches for anything that arrived meanwhile.
- How does my team use it?
- Each person who runs automations installs the app. Keep a project in a shared folder, such as Google Drive or a network drive, and teammates can open it and follow every run, while one person owns it and runs it.
- Do I need anyone technical to set it up?
- No. Download the app, add an automation in plain words, and connect only what that job needs. Nothing runs until you switch it on.
Already have tools for this? Here is the difference.
Rules in your accounting software
Coding recurring transactions the same way every time.
They can't read an unusual invoice, ask the requester a question or explain why a match failed.
Flowchart automation tools
Moving data between apps at high volume.
Every exception becomes another branch someone has to build, test and maintain.
AI chat assistants
Explaining a document when you paste it in.
Nothing happens until you come back and ask again, and the procedure lives in a chat.
AUTOMATE.md
Your routine, written in plain words. It runs on its own, follows your rules, handles the exceptions a flowchart can't, and asks you when it matters. The file stays yours, whichever AI model runs it.
Start with one job.
Make it your own.
macOS — coming soon- 1
Get the app
It runs on your computer, next to your files.
- 2
Add the automation
Paste the instructions into the app, or save them as a file next to your work.
- 3
Try it, then turn it on
Run it once and check the result. It only runs on its own once you switch it on.