Agent #3 — Finance & Reporting (Ferland)

The CFO That Never Sleeps

Most brands under €20M don't have a CFO. They have a founder who hates spreadsheets, an accountant who comes once a month, and a bookkeeper who's always 3 weeks behind.

The Finance Agent changes this by turning financial data into real-time, actionable intelligence.

What the Finance Agent Does

1. Automated P&L Generation

Every Monday morning at 7:00 AM, the Finance Agent delivers a weekly P&L to the founder's inbox. Not a spreadsheet to interpret — a narrative summary:

Week 10 Summary (Mar 3-9, 2026)

Revenue: +12% WoW, +23% YoY - DTC Online: 39% of revenue - Wholesale: 32% - Store A (flagship): 13% - Store B (neighborhood): 9% - Department Store: 7%

Gross Margin: 67.8% (target: 67%) ✅ EBITDA margin: 8.6% — trending toward 10.7% annual target

⚠️ Flag: Shipping costs +18% vs. last week. Cause: 3PL surcharge for oversized packages (new handbag collection). Recommend negotiating volumetric pricing.

🟢 Cash runway: 6+ months at current burn rate.

2. Invoice Processing & Reconciliation

• Extracts data from supplier invoices (PDF/email)
• Matches invoices against POs and delivery notes
• Flags discrepancies: "Invoice from Supplier X is higher than PO amount. Possible: extra units shipped?"
• Queues approved invoices for payment

3. Cash Flow Forecasting

• Projects 4-week cash flow based on:
• Historical revenue patterns
• Known upcoming expenses (rent, salaries, supplier payments)
• Outstanding wholesale receivables
• Seasonal adjustments
• Alerts when projected cash drops below safety threshold

4. Tax & Compliance Prep

• Tracks all transactions for quarterly VAT filing
• Separates domestic vs. intra-EU vs. international sales
• Prepares data export compatible with accounting software (Xero, QBO, A3)
• Flags transactions that need human review for tax categorization

5. Board / Investor Reporting

• Monthly executive summary with KPIs
• Quarterly board deck data preparation
• YoY comparisons, trend analysis, cohort data
• Exportable to Google Slides / Notion

Configuration Blueprint

The SOUL.md

# Finance Agent — Ferland

You are Ferland, the financial intelligence agent. Los números son sagrados — nunca inventas uno.

## Mission
Provide accurate, timely, actionable financial data.
Make the founder feel like they have a real CFO.

## Communication Style
- Precise. Numbers always rounded to meaningful precision.
- Contextualized. Never report a number without comparison (WoW, MoM, YoY, vs target).
- Highlight exceptions, not norms. If something is on track, say so briefly. If something is off, explain why and recommend action.
- Use plain language. The audience is a founder, not an accountant.

## Rules
- NEVER make financial decisions autonomously (payments, transfers, investments)
- ALWAYS flag when actual differs from forecast by > 10%
- Revenue recognition: only count when order is fulfilled, not when placed
- Multi-currency: always convert to EUR using daily ECB rate
- Wholesale revenue: recognize on shipment, not on invoice

## Reporting Schedule
- Daily: Quick revenue snapshot (by channel)
- Weekly: Full P&L + narrative (Monday 7AM)
- Monthly: Executive summary + cash flow projection
- Quarterly: Board-ready KPI package

Key Integrations

Integration	What For
Shopify	Sales data, refunds, discounts
Stripe	Payment processing, payouts, fees
Google Sheets	P&L templates, dashboards
Holded	ERP — invoicing, payment reconciliation, accounting
Payhawk	Corporate cards, expense tracking, bank statements
Bank feeds (via accounting software)	Cash position, reconciliation
Stockagile	COGS data, purchase orders
Google Drive	Invoice storage, report archive

Real Metrics

Metric	Before	After	Impact
Time to weekly P&L	8 hours	45 minutes	-91%
Financial data lag	2-3 weeks	Real-time	-100%
Invoice processing time	2 days avg	2 hours	-96%
Reconciliation errors/month	15	2	-87%
Cash flow visibility	1 week ahead	4 weeks ahead	+300%

The Most Valuable Output: Pattern Detection

The real magic isn't in automating reports — it's in seeing patterns humans miss:

• "Wholesale account X has increased payment terms from 30 to 45 days over the last 3 invoices. Flag for relationship review."
• "Shipping cost as % of revenue has increased from 8.2% to 9.7% over 6 weeks. At current trend, this erodes margin significantly over a full year."
• "Revenue from UK customers dropped 22% after the price increase. Other markets unaffected. Consider UK-specific pricing."

These insights exist in the data. Humans just don't have time to look for them.

Advanced Capabilities (Production)

Zero-Touch Invoice Pipeline The finance agent scans email inboxes daily and automatically: 1. Detects PDF invoice attachments using content heuristics (keywords: factura, IVA, CIF) 2. Extracts 16 structured fields (provider, tax ID, base amount, VAT, due date, etc.) 3. Classifies by category (supplier, utilities, services, etc.) 4. Uploads to Google Drive in organized month/sender folders 5. Logs to a reconciliation tracking spreadsheet 6. First batch: 117 invoices auto-processed from 2 months of email backlog. Zero manual data entry.

Bank Credit Line Monitoring Monitors multiple bank credit lines (confirming, factoring, export instruments) by reading from a live spreadsheet: - Daily alerts if amortizations are due within 48 hours - Weekly summaries on Mondays - Monthly overviews on the 1st - Color-coded urgency levels - Prevents missed payments that could affect credit relationships

Multi-Currency Treasury Visibility Real-time view across multiple bank accounts in 6+ currencies (EUR, USD, GBP, CAD, HKD, JPY): - OAuth2 JWT integration with banking APIs - PayPal Business transaction data - Accounting system treasury module - All accessible by the agent for cash position queries in natural language

Profitability Engine Goes beyond revenue reporting to calculate actual per-product profitability: - Cross-references 9 live APIs (ecommerce, accounting, inventory, advertising) - Calculates CM3 (Contribution Margin 3) per product - Integrates cost data from inventory management with revenue and ad spend - Provides true margin visibility, not just top-line numbers

Implementation Checklist

• [ ] Map all revenue sources and their data APIs
• [ ] Define chart of accounts (simplified for agent use)
• [ ] Create P&L template in Google Sheets
• [ ] Connect Shopify, Stripe, and accounting software
• [ ] Set up invoice inbox (dedicated email for suppliers)
• [ ] Define reporting schedule and recipients
• [ ] Run parallel with manual reporting for 1 month
• [ ] Validate accuracy, calibrate categorization rules
• [ ] Go live with automated reporting
• [ ] Add cash flow forecasting once 3 months of data collected