Today's Agent Skill: Annual Business Budget Planner
What It Does
Running a small business without a budget means every slow month is a surprise and every investment decision is a gut call. This skill turns last year's revenue and expense data into a structured 12-month budget that gives you monthly spending targets, a cash reserve target, and clear flags for when you're off track.
How It Works
The agent takes a summary of your prior year's income and expense categories (which you can pull from your accounting software as a P&L statement), applies a target growth rate for the coming year, and produces a month-by-month budget broken down by income category and expense category. It also builds a cash reserve recommendation and a simple monthly variance tracker you can fill in throughout the year.
How to Deploy It
Run this skill in Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Cursor, or Windsurf by pasting the output of your QuickBooks, Wave, or FreshBooks annual profit and loss report. After generating the budget, copy the output into a Google Sheets template or Excel workbook. Revisit the skill each quarter to re-run with updated actuals and adjust the remaining months of the plan.
SKILL.md — Ready to Deploy
## Description
Converts a prior-year profit and loss summary into a structured 12-month budget with monthly income targets, spending limits by category, a cash reserve recommendation, and a variance tracking table — no accounting expertise required.
## Trigger
Invoke when the user says "build me a budget," "help me plan my spending for next year," "create a business budget," or pastes a prior-year P&L or income/expense summary.
## Input
- Prior year revenue by income category (product sales, service fees, retainers, etc.) — total or month-by-month if available
- Prior year expenses by category (payroll, rent, utilities, software, marketing, supplies, insurance, professional services, etc.)
- Business type and any known seasonal patterns (slow months, busy season)
- Target revenue growth percentage for the coming year (or "same as last year" if no specific target)
- Any major planned changes: new hire, equipment purchase, lease renewal, new product launch, etc.
- Optional: desired profit margin target (e.g., "I want to keep at least 15% net margin")
## Steps
1. Calculate last year's total revenue, total expenses, and net profit. Compute the actual net profit margin percentage.
2.Copy the full SKILL.md and drop it into your agent's skills directory to activate this skill.