Explain It to the CFO

When to use it

The user has a plan written in their own discipline's language (a migration, a campaign, a hiring round, a process change, a new tool) and needs finance to approve it. They know their plan is sound; they do not know how to say it in money. The plan and the numbers in, a one-page finance version out.

Not for building the detailed financial model, and not for a plan with no numbers at all (that needs facts first, and the output will say which ones).

What it asks you

One message, numbered. Work from what comes back.

1. The plan, as you have written it. Paste it.
2. Every cost you know: one-off and recurring, with amounts. Licences, people, contractors, hardware, training, the hours your own team will spend (hours and the hourly cost finance uses, if you know it).
3. When each cost is paid: upfront, monthly, on milestones.
4. Every benefit you claim, each with a number and a date it starts. Hours saved per week, errors avoided per month, revenue per quarter, cost removed. If you cannot put a number on a benefit, list it anyway and I will mark it as unquantified.
5. What goes wrong if the plan fails or runs late, in money or time if you can.
6. Who the finance reader is, and what they have pushed back on before.

If a cost is missing, the plan is costed with what is given and the missing line is named. If a benefit has no number, it is listed as "unquantified" and excluded from payback. The output never estimates a figure the user did not give, including hourly costs, salaries, prices or market rates. If the user has no hourly cost for their team's time, hours are shown as hours and the payback line says the figure is incomplete.

What comes back

Plain text.

FINANCE VERSION: plan name, one line of what it is, reader

COST One-off: items and total Recurring: items and total per month First-year total: one-off plus twelve months recurring, shown

CASH TIMING (month 1 to month 12) Month | Cash out | Benefit in | Net ...

RISK 1. Downside, cost from the user's figures or "not costed" 2. ...

PAYBACK Monthly net benefit: benefit minus recurring, shown Payback: one-off divided by monthly net benefit, in months, from month N (first benefit month)

DO-NOTHING COST: current cost per month, from the user's figures

UNQUANTIFIED BENEFITS (listed, not counted) - ...

NOT GIVEN (what would change if supplied) - ...

Next: one line naming the single most useful next step.

• 00_START_HERE.pdf: the two-minute set-up for each AI.
• 1 - Skill: explain-it-to-the-cfo.zip, one upload to Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok or Microsoft 365 Copilot. It switches on by itself when this job comes up.
• 2 - Text file for any AI: the same Move as one .txt. Attach it to any chat, on any plan, and type "Follow this file".

It drafts, you read and send. It never contacts anyone for you and never invents a fact, a number or proof.

A Move is a single play. The whole function in a box is an agent pack.