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Reports with inspectable numbers: how the workflow works
Short answer
A management report written with AI holds no made-up numbers when the figures and the commentary are kept apart. Every amount has an ID and an approved source, and the release check rejects any value outside that set. A conflict between sources stays visible until the controller decides. At Syntalith an automation costs from €3,000 net. At 12 reports a month of 240 minutes each, it pays back in 2.4 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 for the automation of one process, build paid once
- from €3,000
- from signing the contract to acceptance
- 2–6 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
Reporting and AI: statistics 2026
2.4 mo.
payback of a €3,000 automation at 12 reports a month: €1,675 of work today, €420 with checking and the model. Scenario.
12
According to a Syntalith test (2026), the release check for a management report passed 12 defined cases covering correct reports, rejected reports and source reconciliations.
50%
According to the European Commission (2026), half of EU SMEs and mid-caps name high investment costs as a barrier to AI.
Source: European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer 578 (2026) ↗
90%
According to the European Commission (2026), 90% of EU companies that use AI say people take the decisions.
Source: European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer 578 (2026) ↗
20.0%
According to Eurostat (2025), 20.0% of EU enterprises with at least 10 employees used AI.
Figures checked: 22 October 2026
Two sources give different revenue
The sales report shows a different amount from the ledger. Fluent commentary will not settle that difference. The controller needs a view that exposes the conflict and leads back to both sources. In our demonstrator, on synthetic data for July 2026, the finance system and the CRM show different revenue. The view shows both values and the reason: different booking periods.
The renderer receives a set of figures with IDs, sources and formatting. The commentary may point only to those IDs. A rule checks that the text brings in no outside values, and the reconciliation compares amounts within a set tolerance. A difference above the tolerance stays a visible discrepancy. The CSV export holds the status of each figure, the version of its definition and the date it was read, and missing data never turns into a zero.
- 01Figuresa set with IDs, sources and format
- 02Reconciliationamounts compared within a tolerance, any excess visible
- 03Commentaryreferences to figure IDs only
- 04Checkoutside values and sources that do not exist are rejected
- 05Controllerdecides the business meaning and the release
- 3 correct reports, 4 rejected and 5 reconciliations, 12 cases in total
- Synthetic data, with no integration with a client's systems
- Commentary written without a model, so the editing work is not measured
- The system shows the conflict, but it does not choose the right value
What it costs and when it pays back
- Today
- 12 reports × 240 min = 48 h (€1,675)
- With the system, a person checks the output in 25% of the time
- €419
- Model, 2 calls per case, Claude Sonnet 5.5
- €1
- Cost of one case
- €139.60 today, €35.00 with the system
- Saving
- €1,255 a month
Payback of €3,000
2.4 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 1,500 output tokens per call at Anthropic's rates, at the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026.
The count covers the work around a case: searching, reading, writing and handing over. What remains is the time to check the result, 25% 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.
The scenario assumes 12 reports a month at 4 hours of work each: gathering the figures, reconciling differences and the commentary. In the demonstrator, the release check cost about €0.0002 for preparing the commentary and checking the figures.
Who decides the definition of revenue
The release check shows where the check on figures belongs. Someone still has to settle the definition of revenue, the accounting period and the right source. When two correctly read values describe different measures, an arithmetic comparison will not solve the problem. Anthropic, in Building effective agents, advises checking a model's output with a program wherever possible, and the figures in a report are such a place. The full report cycle is described in automated management reports.
One system, fixed definitions
a report in your current tool
no build
Several sources, commentary written by hand
automation with reconciliation and a release check
from €3,000
AI commentary on every report
a figure check before the commentary is released
from €3,000
Where to start
The first trial covers one recurring report: first we compare the data and corrections with the current version, then we switch on the release preparation. To prepare: definitions of measures and periods, the sources of the figures with their tolerances, and the person who approves the report. We build this kind of rollout as part of AI automations. For the free analysis, a description of one case from recent weeks and of the tools it passed through is enough. You do not need to send confidential documents, and you get a written plan within 2 working days.
Worked example · Scenario
How we count the payback: a management report
We run the same count for your report in the free analysis.
€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 →
