AI financial storytelling for CFOs
finstory turns your month-end close into a board-ready story. Every figure traces to the source. Every variance comes with its reason. The first draft is written for you, in Claude.
Your systems
Your financial semantic layer
Board-ready story in Claude
Claude
Gross margin up 1.4 pts
Driven by marketplace mix and corporate sales.
01Live storyHow Claude builds a board story with finstory, on the May close of Born2Cycle, our demo company.
finstoryRead company memory
May 2026 is your latest close. Which reports go in the story?
Select all that apply
Submit
Same order as April’s story: P&L, bridge, then stores. Starting with the P&L.
finstorySummarized P&L · May 2026
Revenue beat budget by $605K and gross margin widened to 33.0%. Opex held on plan, so EBITDA landed at $1.32M, $354K ahead.
Question 1 of 1
Gross margin is 33.0% against 31.6% budgeted. What drove the 1.4 pts?
Submit
finstoryWriting page 1: title, subtitle, 2 chips, 3 notes (1 in your words)
Summarized P&L saved (page 1 of 3).
finstoryEBITDA bridge · May 2026
This bridge follows from your answer on page 1: volume added $191K, the richer margin $176K, and opex took $14K. No new questions here.
finstoryWriting page 2: title, subtitle, 2 chips, 3 notes
EBITDA bridge saved (page 2 of 3).
finstoryP&L by store · May 2026
Vancouver (+$174K) and Seattle (+$104K) carry May. Bend Flagship is $62K behind budget on operating income.
Question 1 of 1
From April’s story
April’s story kept Bend’s web-order costs on watch. Bend is $62K behind in May. Same cause?
Submit
finstoryWriting page 3: title, subtitle, 2 chips, 3 notes (1 in your words)
P&L by store saved (page 3 of 3).
Your May 2026 board story is ready: 3 pages, 9 notes, 2 in your words.
Revenue of $12.70M beat budget by 5.0% and gross margin widened to 33.0%, while opex held within 0.5% of plan.
Year to date, EBITDA is $3.23M: $228K ahead of budget and 2.6× last year.
Net result: a volume and margin beat, with costs on plan.
Sales volume added $191K: $605K more revenue at the budgeted 31.6% margin.
The richer 33.0% margin added $176K, and opex ran $14K over plan.
Net result: the beat came from gross profit, not from cost cuts.
Operating income beat budget in 11 of 13 stores. Vancouver added $174K and Seattle $104K.
Bend Flagship ships the web orders: revenue −$37K, with cost of goods +$13K and inbound freight +$10K against plan.
Net result: a timing miss at Bend, not a trend.
P&L by store
Born2Cycle is finstory's demo company, a 14-store bicycle retailer on NetSuite. Figures are from its May 2026 close.
02The problem
The close takes days. The pack takes longer. You export from NetSuite, paste into slides, reconcile the one number that moved and write the commentary at midnight.
The figures are right. The story arrives late, and the questions arrive after the meeting.
Pasted by hand
Six files feed one deck. One broken link and the board reads a wrong number.
Written last
Commentary comes at the very end, from memory, when you are most tired.
Asked too late
The questions come after the pack is sent, and the answers end up in someone's inbox.
Board_Pack_May_v14_FINAL.pptx
Feeding the deck
CEO23:48
Why is Bend down? The web shop looked busy.
You23:52
Checking. The export doesn't split freight by store.
03The shift
finstory reads your close and drafts every page of the story. When a number moves and the ledger can't say why, it doesn't guess. It asks you, in plain English, and pins your one-line answer to the exact figure it explains.
A headline, the commentary and the right chart for each part of your pack.
If the data doesn't show the cause, it says so and asks the person who knows.
Context sits on the figure it explains, so the board reads the why next to the what.
Reading P&L by store · May 2026
Bend Flagship is −$62K against budget on operating income: revenue −$37K, cost of goods +$13K and inbound freight +$10K. Bend ships the web orders, so this may be an online story. What drove it?
June's road-bike range landed early, so its freight hit May. Timing, not trend.
Added as note 3 on Bend's variance, marked as your context. Next: Mercer Island is also behind, by $6K. Worth a note?
Your answer · pinned
June's road-bike range landed early, so its freight hit May. Timing, not trend.
On: Bend Flagship · operating income vs budget · page 3 of the May board story
04How it works
NetSuite connects directly: actuals, budgets and forecasts in one governed model. Not on NetSuite? Excel works too.
Ask “How did May go?” and get the finding in a minute. Ask for the board story and it drafts page by page, checking the why with you.
Share a secure link, export to PowerPoint, and see which pages your board actually read.
Early-bird customers are live within days, with onboarding by our team.
05A month with finstory
No new process. finstory fits the month you already run.
Actuals sync from NetSuite overnight. finstory checks the load before anyone reads it, and flags what looks odd.
NetSuite sync · complete
The finding first, then the drivers, then the questions worth asking next. No pivot tables.
Claude · finstory connected
EBITDA $1.32M, +$354K against budget.
Sales volume and a richer margin split the beat; opex landed on plan. Bend is the one store to watch.
Page by page, from your own reports. finstory asks about the moves it can't explain, and your answers become pinned notes.
May board story · page 3 of 5 · draft
Vancouver and Seattle carry May; Bend is $62K behind
Publish to named board members with a secure link, or export to PowerPoint. See who read which page, and for how long.
May board story · read by
Load a new forecast from a spreadsheet just by asking. finstory checks the file with you, runs a dry run and keeps a copy to roll back to before anything changes.
June reforecast.xlsx · loaded
06Trust
A board story is only as good as the figures under it. finstory is built so nobody has to wonder where a number came from.
Every figure on a page comes from a governed report on your own ledger, and you can drill into the lines behind it.
The AI quotes figures exactly as they appear in your reports. When the data can't explain a move, it asks.
Keep a story private, share it with your company, or send it to named people with a link that expires.
Independently audited security controls. Hosted on Google Cloud, encrypted in transit and at rest.
07Finance leaders
finstory is shaped week by week with our early design partners. This is what they tell us.
We spend the week after close on the analysis now, not on assembling it. That is the week where the value actually sits.
The numbers come straight from the source into the report. No rework, no rebuild, no version that drifted. That gives me the confidence to put it in front of the board.
The reporting is ready while the team is still closing. When the numbers are final, we refresh and we present. The deadline stopped being a deadline.
The first draft raises things I had not raised myself. Not a different number, a different question. That is exactly what I wanted from it.
Finance teams already do the hard part, a clean close. finstory makes sure the story that follows is just as rigorous, and arrives on time.
08Early bird
One plan with everything included, at an early-bird price that stays locked for as long as you subscribe. Places are limited.
Yes, for the AI part. finstory's assistants work inside Claude, on your own Claude plan with custom connectors (Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise). Your stories, reports and publishing live in finstory either way.
Most teams are live within two to three business days of the onboarding call. The call takes 60 to 90 minutes: we connect NetSuite, set up your first reports and walk your team through the first story.
Yes. You can load your actuals, budgets and forecasts from Excel today, and we are adding more connectors. Book a demo and we'll go through your setup before you buy.
Yes. Monthly plans can be cancelled at any time and run to the end of the month you have paid for. Annual plans run for the full year and can be cancelled before they renew. Payments already made are not refunded.
finstory · NetSuite
Or $800/month billed annually.
Everything included
