How to build a Financial Statement Reconciliation Assistant

TL;DR

• What it does: Compares two statements (Excel + PDF), highlights differences, and emails a summary.

• Who it’s for: Accounting and audit teams that need a fast, defensible variance view.

• Time to value: ~45–60 minutes to configure; minutes per comparison thereafter.

• Output: 1) Visual comparison table, 2) bullet summary of differences & insights, 3) optional email dispatch.

Common Pain Points of Reconciling Financial Statements

• Two versions in different formats (PDF vs Excel) make review tedious.

• Reviewers need a quick diff instead of scrolling whole workbooks.

• Findings must be shareable with approvers and auditors.

What the Agent Delivers

• Upload once, compare side-by-side (Section | Document 1 | Document 2).

• Concise difference summary listing only variances (e.g., AR, Total Assets, AP, Equity).

• One-click distribution of results via email.

Step-by-Step Build (StackAI Nodes)

1) Upload Financial Statement (Excel / PDF) — Input

What it does: Two separate upload nodes accept statements in different formats:

• Statement (Excel) for .xlsx/.csv

• Statement (PDF) for .pdf

Both nodes are marked Exposed as input so end users can attach files at run time. (Screens show successful configuration; no test files attached.)

Goal: Provide the two source documents the agent will compare side-by-side in later steps.

2) Extract & Compare Financial Sections (LLM)

What it does: Runs a comparison of the two uploaded statements and returns a Markdown table with a side-by-side view of Balance Sheet and P&L sections.

Goal: Produce a concise, readable table that shows Section, Document 1, Document 2, highlighting differences or discrepancies.

Provider / Model: Anthropic – Claude 3.5 Sonnet (Large Context)

Instructions

You are an AI assistant designed to compare two financial statements. Your response should include a Markdown table that presents a side-by-side comparison of the balance sheet and profit & loss (P&L) statements of the company, clearly highlighting any differences or discrepancies.



- Ensure the output table contains three columns: Section, Document 1, Document 2.

- Maintain brevity and clarity in your response.

- Do not include any Markdown tags in your output

You are an AI assistant designed to compare two financial statements. Your response should include a Markdown table that presents a side-by-side comparison of the balance sheet and profit & loss (P&L) statements of the company, clearly highlighting any differences or discrepancies.



- Ensure the output table contains three columns: Section, Document 1, Document 2.

- Maintain brevity and clarity in your response.

- Do not include any Markdown tags in your output

You are an AI assistant designed to compare two financial statements. Your response should include a Markdown table that presents a side-by-side comparison of the balance sheet and profit & loss (P&L) statements of the company, clearly highlighting any differences or discrepancies.



- Ensure the output table contains three columns: Section, Document 1, Document 2.

- Maintain brevity and clarity in your response.

- Do not include any Markdown tags in your output

Prompt

Sections from Document 1:
<pdf-1>
{doc-0} 
</pdf-1>
Sections from Document 2:
<excel-2>
{doc-1} 
</excel-2>

Sections from Document 1:
<pdf-1>
{doc-0} 
</pdf-1>
Sections from Document 2:
<excel-2>
{doc-1} 
</excel-2>

Sections from Document 1:
<pdf-1>
{doc-0} 
</pdf-1>
Sections from Document 2:
<excel-2>
{doc-1} 
</excel-2>

3) Explain Financial Impact (LLM)

What it does: Takes the structured comparison generated by the previous node (Anthropic’s side-by-side table) and produces a narrative explanation of the differences between the two financial statements. Instead of just showing numbers, this step translates the variances into plain business language so accounting teams and auditors can quickly understand the impact.

Goal

• Highlight meaningful differences in financial accounts (e.g., cash, receivables, equity).

• Provide short, clear explanations that contextualize why those differences matter.

• Create text suitable for inclusion in a reconciliation report or audit notes.

Provider / Model: GPT-4o Mini (Fastest)

Instructions

You are an AI assistant specialized in financial reporting.

- Be concise and professional.

- Highlight only material differences (ignore immaterial variances).

- Explain each difference in plain language, with numbers and context.

- Where relevant, mention the potential financial or compliance impact.

- Output should be structured as short bullet points for easy review

You are an AI assistant specialized in financial reporting.

- Be concise and professional.

- Highlight only material differences (ignore immaterial variances).

- Explain each difference in plain language, with numbers and context.

- Where relevant, mention the potential financial or compliance impact.

- Output should be structured as short bullet points for easy review

You are an AI assistant specialized in financial reporting.

- Be concise and professional.

- Highlight only material differences (ignore immaterial variances).

- Explain each difference in plain language, with numbers and context.

- Where relevant, mention the potential financial or compliance impact.

- Output should be structured as short bullet points for easy review

Prompt

You are given a financial statement comparison with values from two documents.

Your task:
1. Identify the key differences in accounts (e.g., Assets, Liabilities, Equity, P&L items).
2. Explain the difference in plain language with numbers (e.g., "Accounts Receivable: Document 1 shows $85,500, Document 2 shows $95,000 – $9,500 higher in Doc 2").
3. Summarize the potential financial impact in 1–2 short sentences (e.g., "Higher receivables in Doc 2 may suggest timing differences in collections").
4. Organize the output as:
   - Differences (bullet list)
   - Short Impact Summary

You are given a financial statement comparison with values from two documents.

Your task:
1. Identify the key differences in accounts (e.g., Assets, Liabilities, Equity, P&L items).
2. Explain the difference in plain language with numbers (e.g., "Accounts Receivable: Document 1 shows $85,500, Document 2 shows $95,000 – $9,500 higher in Doc 2").
3. Summarize the potential financial impact in 1–2 short sentences (e.g., "Higher receivables in Doc 2 may suggest timing differences in collections").
4. Organize the output as:
   - Differences (bullet list)
   - Short Impact Summary

You are given a financial statement comparison with values from two documents.

Your task:
1. Identify the key differences in accounts (e.g., Assets, Liabilities, Equity, P&L items).
2. Explain the difference in plain language with numbers (e.g., "Accounts Receivable: Document 1 shows $85,500, Document 2 shows $95,000 – $9,500 higher in Doc 2").
3. Summarize the potential financial impact in 1–2 short sentences (e.g., "Higher receivables in Doc 2 may suggest timing differences in collections").
4. Organize the output as:
   - Differences (bullet list)
   - Short Impact Summary

Here’s a structured explanation of the three outputs you showed, in the same style as the template pages you like (Investment Memo, Spreadsheet Assistant):

4) Visual Comparison Table (Output)

What it does: Generates a side-by-side table showing accounts and values from each uploaded statement. This is the first layer of transparency: reviewers can visually confirm whether two documents align.

Goal: Provide a quick, structured comparison of balances (e.g., Cash, Accounts Receivable).

5) Summary of Differences and Insights (Output)

What it does: Turns the raw comparison table into narrative insights by listing only the differences and highlighting their magnitude.

Goal: Focus the reviewer’s attention on material variances without scrolling through all unchanged rows.

6) Email Differences and Insights (Output - Notification)

What it does: Automatically sends the Summary of Differences & Insights via email, using the Gmail API.

Goal: Distribute reconciliation findings directly to stakeholders (e.g., CFO, audit team) without requiring them to log into StackAI.

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