FY2025 came in below budget. Revenue missed by ($362K), or (3.1%), and operating income missed by ($195K), or (33.5%). The variance script's built-in checks passed: the line variances add up to the operating income variance, and the monthly revenue variances add up to the full-year revenue variance.

**Line by line, full year**

| Line | Variance | % | Direction |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Revenue | ($362K) | (3.1%) | Unfavourable |
| Cost of goods sold | $196K | 2.4% | Favourable |
| Freight out | ($29K) | (8.3%) | Unfavourable |
| Salaries and wages | ($38K) | (2.5%) | Unfavourable |
| Rent and occupancy | ($23K) | (5.6%) | Unfavourable |
| Marketing | $38K | 28.5% | Favourable |
| Technology | $25K | 15.0% | Favourable |
| Professional fees | ($1K) | (1.4%) | Unfavourable |
| Depreciation | ($1K) | (1.5%) | Unfavourable |
| Other operating | $116 | 0.10% | Favourable |

**What drove the result**
- **Revenue is the whole story.** The miss came from three months: March at ($123K), July at ($132K) and August at ($105K). The other months were close to budget.
- **The COGS underspend isn't a saving.** It moved down with the lower revenue. Gross margin still fell (0.9) pts below budget, so gross profit missed by ($194K). Expect the committee to ask about this.
- **Operating expenses netted to almost nothing, at ($649).** Overspends on salaries and wages, freight and rent were offset by spending less than budgeted on marketing and technology.
- **Professional fees were timing.** The overspend peaked at ($31K) in March and had almost fully reversed by year end, to ($1K).
- **December:** revenue was favourable by $3K, but operating income was unfavourable by ($5K).

**What the data can't tell you:** the file has only P&L lines, with no customer, product or headcount detail. It shows where the variances landed but not why. Before the meeting I'd ask:
- Sales, what happened in March, July and August. A revenue bridge would answer this if you have customer-level data.
- HR, whether headcount or pay rates caused the salaries overspend.
- Marketing, whether the underspend was a cut or deferred spend.

The write-up follows the standard format: headline, results table, month, drivers and data notes. That format allows only four driver bullets, so freight, rent, technology and the professional-fees timing are covered here but not in the note.

Files are in `output/`:
- bva-note.md
- bva.json