---
title: "FP&A automation: AI variance analysis and reporting — Rebase"
description: "Rebase automates FP&A analyst work: variance investigation, management reporting, forecast updates and scenario analysis, across the tools you already use."
url: https://rebasehq.ai/product/fpa
language: en
---

FP&A

# Automate the analyst work behind FP&A.

Rebase investigates variances, prepares management reports, proposes forecast updates, and runs scenario analysis across the systems and models your finance team already uses.

Keep your ERP, planning tools, spreadsheets, and models. Rebase does the analyst work across them.

[See Rebase in action](https://rebasehq.ai/contact-us) [Talk to us](mailto:m@rebasehq.ai)

Illustration: an FP&A session in Rebase. Asked why Q3 operating expenses are $4.2M above budget, Rebase investigates across the ERP, payroll and the FY26 operating plan: budget $42.0M, headcount +$2.1M, cloud infrastructure +$1.4M, marketing +$0.9M, professional services −$0.5M and other +$0.3M make a forecast of $46.2M, 10.0% above budget. Headcount and cloud drive 83% of it; $2.9M is recurring and $1.3M one-off. Asked whether that changes the forecast, it proposes payroll +$1.8M and cloud infrastructure +$1.1M for Q4, and no recurring change to marketing, based on the FY26 forecast model. Asked about a 60-day hiring freeze, it calculates the FY variance falling from $8.1M to $4.6M, using the forecast model and the headcount plan.

What Rebase automates

## The analyst work between your systems and the decision.

Your plans, models, actuals, and forecasts stay in the tools your team already uses. Rebase works across them to investigate, explain, update, and analyze.

An illustration of the FP&A analyst work Rebase automates, in four connected stages: variance investigation answers what changed and why, management reporting what leadership needs to know, forecast updates what needs to change in the outlook, and scenario analysis what happens if we do X.

Variance investigation

## Don't just see the variance. Investigate it.

Rebase investigates material movements across your connected systems, identifies the underlying drivers, separates recurring from one-off effects, and drafts the explanation for finance review.

[See the investigation ](https://rebasehq.ai/solutions/financial-analysis)

Illustration: Rebase's investigation of Q3 operating expenses, forecast $4.2M, 10.0%, above a $42.0M budget. A waterfall bridges budget to forecast through headcount +$2.1M, cloud infrastructure +$1.4M, marketing +$0.9M, professional services −$0.5M and other +$0.3M. The driver table gives each its impact next quarter and whether it recurs: $2.9M carries into Q4. Headcount is open: engineers and account executives who started ahead of budget, a merit increase three months early, and roles that were not budgeted. It was investigated using payroll journals in Business Central, the headcount roster and the FY26 operating plan, in 5 source queries over 38 underlying records.

Management reporting

## The report should be the output, not the work.

Give Rebase the management pack, board deck, or reporting template your team already uses. Rebase updates the numbers, carries through the analysis, refreshes charts, and prepares commentary for review.

Your reporting format. Not ours.

Illustration: Rebase preparing a finance team's own September management pack. It starts from the team's files, the Monthly Management Pack workbook as the existing template and the Board Reporting deck. Rebase pulls September actuals, updates 12 KPIs, investigates 4 material variances, refreshes 6 charts and drafts the executive commentary, leaving 2 items for review. The pack, ready for review: revenue $26.5M, 2.7% above plan; gross margin 64.2%; operating expenses $15.6M, $1.6M above budget; EBITDA $1.4M; cash $41.6M. Operating expenses are open in a drawer: payroll $7.3M, cloud infrastructure $3.2M, marketing $2.1M, professional services $1.6M and other $1.4M, with cloud split into AWS $1.76M, Azure $800K, Datadog $350K and other $290K.

Forecast updates

## Keep the forecast current without rebuilding it.

Rebase identifies what has changed since the last forecast, investigates the financial impact, and proposes updates to the model your team already uses. Finance reviews the proposed changes before accepting them.

Your planning software

Stores and calculates the forecast.

Rebase

Figures out what should change and why.

Illustration: Rebase working in a finance team's own forecast model, FY26 Forecast Model.xlsx, version 12, last updated 1 September. Since then it has found three changes: hiring that ran ahead of the headcount plan, +$1.8M in Q4, from payroll and the headcount plan; committed cloud infrastructure spend that increased, +$1.1M in Q4, from the contract and the ERP; and the annual conference, unbudgeted Q3 spend that is one-off, $0 in Q4. It proposes the Q4 updates: payroll from $22.6M to $24.4M, cloud infrastructure from $8.5M to $9.6M, and marketing unchanged at $6.3M, a recurring Q4 adjustment of +$2.9M, for finance to review. A chart shows FY26 operating expenses by month, actual to September and budget for the year, with the current forecast and the forecast with the proposed updates for Q4, ending December at $16.6M.

Scenario analysis

## Ask the question. Rebase does the model work.

Rebase gathers the relevant plan, assumptions, commitments, and cash position, then runs the question through defined financial logic or the model your team already trusts.

Illustration: a hiring scenario in Rebase. Asked whether the company can hire 40 more engineers from January, Rebase runs the question through the team's FY26 forecast model, version 12, its headcount plan and its cash plan. The assumptions: an average loaded cost of $145K from the headcount plan, a start on 1 January, a four-month hiring ramp and $12K of recruiting cost per hire, against a minimum operating cash of $20M from treasury policy. Each option is tested against three limits: no more than $0.5M added to the FY26 forecast, no more than $3.0M added to the FY27 plan, and cash of at least $20M. The base case and 20 hires pass all three. 40 hires pass FY26 and cash, at a low of $20.7M in May 2027, but add $4.8M to FY27, $1.8M more than the plan allows. So 40 hires do not fit the plan: they stay within this year's forecast and cash, but exceed the FY27 plan. 60 hires fail all three.

Calculated from defined assumptions. Not generated by AI.

Trustworthy by design

## AI explains it. Finance math calculates it.

Rebase uses AI to understand questions, gather context, investigate drivers, and communicate the answer. Financial calculations run against defined models, formulas, assumptions, and source data.

A diagram of Rebase's two layers. The AI layer takes a question, understands its intent, finds the relevant data, investigates the drivers, explains the result and generates the commentary. It hands calculations to the models and calculations layer, which takes the existing model, budget, actuals, contracts, assumptions and cash through a defined calculation, made of spreadsheet formulas, SQL logic, business rules, decimal arithmetic and versioned assumptions, and returns the budget, forecast, cash and scenario results the explanation uses.

The explanation can be AI-generated. The numbers are calculated.

Data lineage

## Every number has a source.

Move from the executive summary to the transaction, contract, spreadsheet cell, or system record behind the number.

Illustration: September operating expenses of $15.6M traced to a record. Cloud infrastructure is $3.2M of them: AWS $1.76M, Azure $800K, Datadog $350K and other $290K. Behind AWS is AWS-092826, one of nine AWS invoices for September, for $218,420, read from Business Central, with its source, last sync, calculation, the reports it is used in and its owner.

Ask follow-ups

## Keep asking.

Each answer is a number you can question, not a paragraph to read.

Illustration: a CFO's conversation with Rebase. How are we tracking against budget? $4.2M above plan. Why? Headcount and cloud account for 83%. How much is recurring? $2.9M. Does that change our forecast? Three proposed updates, adding $2.9M to Q4: payroll +$1.8M, cloud infrastructure +$1.1M, marketing unchanged. What if we freeze hiring for 60 days? The FY variance falls from $8.1M to $4.6M. Add that to the board report. Drafted in the Q3 Board Report, slide 7, ready for review.

Integrations

## Work across the FP&A stack you already have.

Connect the systems that hold actuals, plans, headcount, pipeline, cash, and supporting detail. Rebase works across them without requiring finance to rebuild its stack.

A diagram of what Rebase works across for FP&A, by purpose: ERP (Business Central, QuickBooks, Odoo), data warehouse (Snowflake, PostgreSQL, Oracle Database), CRM (Salesforce, Zoho CRM), banking and spend (Plaid, Ramp, Brex, BILL), plans and models (budgets, forecast models, spreadsheet plans and warehouse tables, as files or tables), and HR and payroll (payroll journals, HR exports and headcount plans, from the ERP or as exports).

[View all integrations ](https://rebasehq.ai/integrations)

Control

## Built for decisions finance can defend.

Keep sources traceable, assumptions visible, calculations reproducible, access controlled, and humans in control of material decisions.

- ### Role-based access
Who sees which reports and models is controlled by role.
- ### Source permissions
Rebase reads only what each connection allows.
- ### Human approvals
Material changes wait for a named reviewer.
- ### Version history
Every revision remains tied to the run that produced it.
- ### Calculation history
Each result records inputs, logic, and version.
- ### Audit trail
Every question, query, proposal, and approved change appears in the activity log.
[Read the security page ](https://rebasehq.ai/security)

Illustration: a hiring scenario under review in Rebase, 40 more engineers from January. It passes the FY26 forecast and cash limits and fails the FY27 plan. Its analysis details: five data sources connected, five assumptions defined, calculation version 3.2, prepared by Rebase, reviewed by Sarah Chen, approved, last updated 30 September 2026.

Case study KKR-backed European education group

## [A KKR-backed education group connects management reporting and finance operations with Rebase.](https://rebasehq.ai/resources/case-studies/european-education-group)

More than 120 management questions mapped to the systems that answer them, across four ERP instances, a CRM and academic records, with invoice processing prepared for finance review.

> “Rebase has become our new operating system. It gives us a clearer view of our operations and surfaces the insights we need to run the company better.”

Chief Strategy Officer

Questions

## The questions we get asked first.

- ### What is Rebase FP&A?
Rebase uses AI agents to automate analyst work across FP&A, including variance investigation, management report preparation, forecast updates, and scenario analysis. It works with the finance systems, plans, spreadsheets, and models your team already uses.
- ### What does Rebase automate that our planning software doesn't?
Planning software stores and calculates budgets, plans, forecasts, and models. Rebase automates the analyst work around them, such as investigating why results changed, gathering context across systems, preparing reporting, identifying forecast updates, and running financial questions through existing models.
- ### Does Rebase replace our budgeting and planning software?
No. Budgets, forecasts, and models can remain in the systems your team already trusts. Rebase works across them and automates the analysis and manual work around them.
- ### How does Rebase investigate a variance?
Rebase compares the financial result with the relevant budget, forecast, or prior period, identifies material drivers, investigates supporting data across connected systems, separates recurring from one-off effects, and prepares an explanation for finance review.
- ### Does Rebase replace our ERP?
No. Rebase works across the ERP and other systems finance already uses.
- ### Can Rebase prepare our existing management pack or board deck?
Yes. Rebase can work with existing reporting structures and templates, update the underlying figures, incorporate current analysis, refresh supporting content, and prepare the output for review.
- ### Can Rebase update our existing forecast?
Rebase can identify business changes that affect the forecast, calculate their impact using defined financial logic, and propose changes for finance review.
- ### Does Rebase generate forecasts with AI?
No. AI can investigate changes, gather context, and explain results. Financial outputs come from defined formulas, models, assumptions, and source data.
- ### Can Rebase run scenario analysis?
Yes. Rebase can gather the required assumptions and financial context, run scenarios using defined models or calculation logic, and explain the resulting impact on budget, forecast, cash, and other financial constraints.
- ### Can Rebase work with our Excel models?
Yes. Existing spreadsheet models can remain part of the FP&A workflow rather than being rebuilt inside Rebase.
- ### Can every number be traced back to its source?
Yes. Outputs can remain connected to supporting transactions, records, contracts, spreadsheets, and source systems.
- ### What requires human approval?
Teams can define which outputs Rebase prepares automatically and which changes, forecast updates, or other material actions require review before they are accepted.
- ### Who is Rebase FP&A for?
Rebase FP&A is designed for CFOs, finance leaders, FP&A teams, controllers, finance managers, and analysts responsible for reporting, analysis, forecasting, and financial decision support.

## Automate the work between the numbers and the decision.

Let Rebase investigate variances, prepare management reports, propose forecast updates, and run scenario analysis across the finance stack your team already uses.

[See Rebase in action](https://rebasehq.ai/contact-us) [Talk to us](mailto:m@rebasehq.ai)