Summarize last month's QuickBooks profit and loss in a few lines

SKILL.md---
name: quickbooks-monthly-pl-summary
description: "On the 5th: last month's revenue, costs and net income from QuickBooks against the month before, and the accounts that moved the most. Use when the user asks for this, or when it runs on a schedule."
---

# QuickBooks monthly P&L summary

On the 5th: last month's revenue, costs and net income from QuickBooks against the month before, and the accounts that moved the most.

The P&L arrives as a two-page report and gets read as three numbers: revenue, expenses, net. The useful part sits in between, in the handful of accounts that changed enough to need an explanation before someone asks for one.

This skill reads both months side by side, ranks every account by how much it moved, and writes a short summary a founder can paste into the monthly update or send to the board. It only reads the report and leaves the books alone.

## Two ways to get the data

Use the API or MCP route when you have an MCP server, a CLI or an API token for the app. Otherwise, if you can drive a browser the user is signed in to (Claude in Chrome, a Playwright or Chrome DevTools MCP server), use the browser route. Say which one you used.

## Route A: API or MCP server

### What you need

- Access to QuickBooks Online reports: a QuickBooks connector or MCP server, or OAuth tokens for an app with the accounting scope, plus the realm ID of the company file.

If something is missing, say what and stop; do not invent numbers.

### Steps

1. **Pull two months side by side** (QuickBooks): Call `GET /v3/company/{realmId}/reports/ProfitAndLoss?start_date=2026-08-01&end_date=2026-09-30&summarize_column_by=Month&accounting_method=Accrual` with the last two full months, so each row has one column per month.
2. **Flatten the report**: The response nests sections (`Income`, `COGS`, `Expenses`, `OtherIncome`, `OtherExpenses`) as `Rows.Row` entries with a `Header`, child `Rows` and a `Summary`. Keep each account row with its name and both values, plus the section totals and `NetIncome`.
3. **Rank what moved**: Sort accounts by absolute change and keep the top five that moved by more than $1,000 or 20%. Compute gross margin for both months.
4. **Explain the biggest moves** (QuickBooks): For the top two movers, pull `reports/ProfitAndLossDetail` for last month and read the transactions under that account, so the summary can name the vendor or invoice behind the change.
5. **Write the summary**: Revenue, costs and net income with their change, gross margin, the movers with one line of why each, and a warning if the month looks unfinished (a balance in `Uncategorized Expense` or `Ask My Accountant`).

## Route B: the browser

### What you need

- Signed in to QuickBooks Online with access to reports (Reports only, Standard with all access, or Company admin), with the right company open.

If something is missing, say what and stop; do not invent numbers.

### Steps

Start at https://app.qbo.intuit.com/app/reports. The user is signed in already; never type passwords or codes, and ask if a sign-in page appears.

1. **Run the comparison report**: Open `https://app.qbo.intuit.com/app/reports`, pick **Standard reports** and find **Profit and Loss Comparison** by name. Set **Report period** to **Last month**, **Accounting method** to **Accrual**, under **Compare** tick **Previous Period (PP)** and untick **Previous year (PY)**, and under **Calculations** tick **$ change** and **% change**. Run it.
2. **Read the headline numbers**: Take **Total Income**, **Total Cost of Goods Sold**, **Total Expenses** and **Net Income** for both months, and compute gross margin as income minus cost of goods sold over income for each.
3. **Rank what moved**: Scan the **$ change** column and keep the five accounts that moved most, among those up or down by more than $1,000 or 20%. Export to Excel from the report toolbar if the account list is long.
4. **Explain the two biggest moves**: Click the last-month amount of each of the two biggest movers. QuickBooks opens a **Transaction Report** for that account and period; read the vendors, invoices or bills behind the change.
5. **Check the month is closed**: Look for **Uncategorized Expense**, **Uncategorized Income** and **Ask My Accountant** rows in the report. A balance in any of them means the month may not be finished; say so in the summary.

Note: The comparison report already shows both months side by side, so the browser route is the better one here. Control names differ slightly between the classic and the newer report view.

## The report

- **Revenue**, **total costs** and **net income** for last month, each against the month before.
- **Gross margin** for both months.
- **Top movers**: up to five accounts with the change and the reason.
- A note if the month doesn't look closed yet.

## Post it to Briefkin

When `BRIEFKIN_TOKEN` is set, or `~/.config/briefkin/env` exists (the installer from https://briefkin.dev/docs writes it), also send the result to the user's Briefkin board as one card. Keep the `item_key` the same on every run so the card updates in place, use a new `event_id` per run, and put today's real numbers in place of the example ones. If the request fails, say so once and carry on.

```bash
[ -n "${BRIEFKIN_TOKEN:-}" ] || . ~/.config/briefkin/env
curl -sS -X POST "${BRIEFKIN_URL:-https://briefkin.dev}/v1/events" \
  -H "authorization: Bearer $BRIEFKIN_TOKEN" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d @- <<'JSON'
{
  "v": 1,
  "event_id": "quickbooks-monthly-pl-summary/<date of this run, e.g. 2026-10-16>",
  "item_key": "quickbooks-monthly-pl-summary",
  "project": "Acme",
  "source": "QuickBooks monthly P&L summary skill",
  "kind": "update",
  "title": "September net loss narrowed to $41,300",
  "summary": "Revenue **$142,800** (+9%), total costs **$184,100** (+3%), net income **-$41,300** against -$47,500 in August.",
  "widget": [
    {
      "type": "Table",
      "props": {
        "columns": [
          "Account",
          "September",
          "August",
          "Change"
        ],
        "align": [
          "left",
          "right",
          "right",
          "right"
        ],
        "rows": [
          [
            "Subscription revenue",
            "$128,600",
            "$118,200",
            "+$10,400"
          ],
          [
            "Contractors",
            "$12,400",
            "$17,900",
            "-$5,500"
          ],
          [
            "Advertising",
            "$19,800",
            "$15,600",
            "+$4,200"
          ],
          [
            "Hosting (COGS)",
            "$21,900",
            "$18,300",
            "+$3,600"
          ],
          [
            "Software subscriptions",
            "$9,750",
            "$8,100",
            "+$1,650"
          ]
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "type": "KeyValue",
      "props": {
        "items": [
          {
            "key": "Gross margin",
            "value": "80.1%, down from 81.5%"
          },
          {
            "key": "Uncategorized balances",
            "value": "None, the month looks closed"
          }
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "type": "Callout",
      "props": {
        "text": "Hosting grew 20% while revenue grew 9%, which took 1.4 points off gross margin.",
        "tone": "warn"
      }
    }
  ]
}
JSON
```

Widgets come from the Briefkin catalog (https://briefkin.dev/v1/catalog). Without a token, just give the user the report.

## Run it on a schedule

Suggested: 5th of the month at 9:00 (`0 9 5 * *`). From cron, with the agent signed in on that machine:

```bash
0 9 5 * * claude -p "Run the quickbooks-monthly-pl-summary skill"
# Codex: codex exec, Gemini CLI: gemini -p, Copilot CLI: copilot -p, OpenCode: opencode run
```

Or use the agent's own scheduler (Claude Code routines, Codex automations, Claude or ChatGPT scheduled tasks): https://briefkin.dev/skills/quickbooks-monthly-pl-summary#schedule

Source: https://briefkin.dev/skills/quickbooks-monthly-pl-summary