Blog · Published · Updated
AI Agent for Financial Reporting: A Controlled Pilot
Short answer
An AI agent in financial reporting collects data from approved sources, gives the origin of every number, flags variances from plan and writes questions to budget owners. The CFO approves a specific release of the report, and any unexplained part of a variance is described as unexplained. At Syntalith the agent costs from €3,000 net, and with 60 variances to explain a month at 30 minutes each it pays back in 4.5 months.
How we workDetails ↓
- 01Call30 minutes with an engineer, free
- 02PrototypeA working system on your process and data, free
- 03ImplementationTarget and fixed price in the contract; 50% at signing
- 04Acceptance50% once the agreed target is met
- net per agent for one process, build paid once
- from €3,000
- from signing the contract to acceptance
- 6–16 weeks
- free prototype on your cases
- €0
We belong to the OpenAI and Anthropic partner programmes and learn through their official courses. What this means ↓
Author: Syntalith · 3 min read
Statistics
Finance and AI: statistics 2026
4.5 mo.
payback of a €3,000 agent at 60 variances to explain a month: €1,047 of work today, €373 with checking and the model. Scenario.
26.2%
According to Eurostat (2025), 26.2% of EU companies analysed data from transaction records such as sales and payment records.
Source: Eurostat, digital economy and society statistics, enterprises (2025) ↗
30.7%
According to Eurostat (2025), 30.7% of EU companies paid for cloud software for finance and accounting.
Source: Eurostat, digital economy and society statistics, enterprises (2025) ↗
20.0%
According to Eurostat (2025), 20.0% of EU companies with at least 10 employees used AI.
Source: Eurostat, 20% of EU enterprises use AI technologies (2025) ↗
14–56%
According to Anthropic (2025), studies with a control group found smaller time savings, from 14% to 56%.
Source: Anthropic, Estimating AI productivity gains (2025) ↗
Figures checked: 22 October 2026
AI financial reporting: every number needs an address
A controller prepares the monthly report for the board. The numbers come from the accounting system, the departments' spreadsheets and the CRM. Variances take the most time: marketing costs 18% above plan, revenue from one channel 12% lower. The controller writes to the budget owners, waits for the answers and puts the commentary together.
The agent collects data from approved sources and records an address for each number: the system, the report, the filter and the date it was read. It flags variances above an agreed threshold and writes a specific question with the numbers to the budget owner. When the answer explains only part of a variance, for example 11 of 18 points, the report shows the rest as unexplained. The agent does not add a cause that nobody gave.
- Every number with the address of its source and the date it was read
- Permissions split by effect: reading, drafting, releasing
- The CFO's approval applies to a specific version of the report
- For Polish companies, KSeF and JPK data only from the approved accounting process
n8n can pause the use of a tool for a person to approve, and LangGraph describes interrupting and resuming a process. A report can contain names, bank accounts and commissions, so the system's history keeps only what is needed, in line with the data minimisation principle in Article 5 of the GDPR.
What a financial reporting agent costs and when it pays back
- Today
- 60 variances to explain × 30 min = 30 h (€1,047)
- With the system, a person checks the output in 35% of the time
- €366
- Model, 3 calls per case, Claude Sonnet 5.5
- €7
- Cost of one case
- €17.45 today, €6.22 with the system
- Saving
- €674 a month
Payback of €3,000
4.5 months
The volume, the time and the checking share are the scenario's assumptions. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat. Model: 15,000 input tokens and 1,200 output tokens per call at Anthropic's rates, converted at the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026.
The count covers the work around each case: searching, reading, writing and handing over. What remains is the time to check the result, 35% of today's work in the scenario. Before the quote we measure both times on 20 to 100 cases the team has already handled, in a free test that takes 5 working days.
When a system report or a spreadsheet is enough
When the report holds a fixed set of numbers from one system, a report in the accounting system or a dashboard is enough. An agent makes sense when the data comes from several sources and variances have to be explained with budget owners every month. In Poland, the official JPK_V7M and JPK_V7K structures are suitable for checking completeness and comparing source data. Generating and sending the files stays in the accounting process.
A fixed set of numbers from one system
a report in the system or a dashboard
no build
Several sources, rare variances
a spreadsheet with links to the sources
no build
Several sources, dozens of variances a month
an agent that collects data and explanations
from €3,000
Where to start
The pilot covers one report. We accept it in parallel with a report prepared by hand: every number has to match, and every variance needs an explanation or a description as unexplained. We build this kind of system as part of our AI agents. For the free process review, a description of one case from the last few weeks and the tools it went through is enough. You do not need to send confidential documents, and you receive a written plan within 2 working days.
Worked example · Scenario
How we count the payback: reporting for the board
We run the same count for your report in the free process review.
€1,815
a month for 12 h a week of report preparation
Payback: 1.9 mo.
The hours for each firm size and checking in 15% of the old time are our assumptions. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat, for companies with 10 or more employees. We measured the model cost in our report system: a commentary with a check of the figures costs about €0.0002, converted at the NBP rate of 21 October 2026 and the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026.
See the full calculation →
