Finance teams

AI agents for finance teams, built around the reporting cycle and review.

Agents that start when the month-end reports are exported, a budget meeting ends or a close deadline comes round, do the drafting and chasing, then stop for the finance team to review. Built in your own Microsoft 365.

Book a free 30-minute call See the agents

FiveForward builds AI agents for UK finance teams in Copilot Studio and Power Automate, covering variance commentary, board packs, budget-holder follow-up and the chasing around the close, so reporting speeds up without loosening control or sign-off.

Finance teams are under pressure for faster reporting, clearer commentary and better answers to the same questions every month. The agents that help are the ones tied to the reporting calendar: they start when the numbers land and stop for review.

The figures, the models, the reconciliations and the sign-off stay owned and checked by people. The agent drafts, formats and chases.

Run an accountancy firm? The accountancy page has the detail: six accountancy agents, what starts each one and where your team approves.

The agents

Agents tied to the reporting cycle.

Each one starts from the close calendar or when the team runs it, and stops for the reviewer.

Month-end commentary

Starts when: The month-end reports are exported.
What it does: Drafts the variance narrative from approved analysis and flags the movements worth explaining.
Where a person approves: A qualified reviewer edits and signs off the commentary before it goes in the pack.

P&L standardisation

Starts when: Someone in the team runs it on demand, with a P&L in its own layout.
What it does: Maps it onto your standard lines, so every P&L arrives in the same shape.
Where a person approves: The team checks the output against the original before consolidation.

Budget-holder follow-up

Starts when: A budget review meeting ends.
What it does: Turns the discussion into actions, owners and draft follow-up emails.
Where a person approves: The finance lead approves before anything is sent.

The close tracker

Starts when: A date in the close calendar comes round.
What it does: Chases the inputs that haven't arrived and prepares the status update.
Where a person approves: Chasers go out on the schedule you agree, and escalations go to a person.

Proof

How this looks in practice.

Case study · Finance and reporting

How a UK hospitality group standardised property P&Ls with a Copilot Studio agent

Monthly P&Ls arrived from each property in a different layout. The finance team now runs a Copilot Studio agent on demand to map each one onto the group's standard lines in seconds, and a person checks the output before the figures go anywhere.

What to watch

Where agents go wrong, and how we avoid it.

An agent's draft commentary treated as the analysis instead of preparation for a qualified reviewer
Agents working from stale or unowned spreadsheets, so answers sound confident but drift from the ledger
Access set too broadly, so draft numbers or sensitive detail surface beyond the finance team
Sensitive figures pasted into public AI tools because a governed route of the firm's own was never set up

Your data and who approves

Built in your Microsoft 365. Approved by your team.

You decide what each agent may do on its own and where a person has to approve. By default, anything that goes to the board or a budget holder, or posts to the ledger, waits for one of your team.

Built in your Microsoft 365

Agents are built in your own Microsoft 365, and your own Azure subscription where a job needs it, not on our servers. We don't host your data.

Agents you talk to see what you can see

An agent your team talks to only sees what the person using it can already see.

Agents that run use a service account

Agents that run on their own use a dedicated service account. Its access is limited to the mailboxes, folders and systems the job needs, agreed with you in advance.

Every run is logged

Every run is logged: what came in, what the agent did and who approved it.

What it costs

Fixed prices, agreed before anything is built.

See pricing

A build: From £2,500, typically £2,500 to £15,000, fixed before anything is built
Discover, if you're not sure yet: £1,500 fixed, covering Design, credited back in full once your follow-on work passes £3,500 (ex VAT) within 90 days
Once live: Care at £295 a month for one live agent, or Embed from £750 a month covering up to three

Microsoft's own usage charges, such as Copilot Credits, are billed by Microsoft to your firm, separately from our fees. All prices exclude VAT.

What would a finance team's first AI agent be?

Month-end commentary is the usual first build: it drafts the narrative for a reviewer and flags the movements worth explaining. It works because the task is repeatable, the source data is governed and the sign-off stays with the team.

Can an agent do the numbers or just the words around them?

Mostly the words. Agents are far stronger on narrative, formatting and chasing than arithmetic. The figures, models and reconciliations stay owned and checked by the finance team.

Is our financial data safe with agents?

We build agents in your own Microsoft 365, not on our servers, and we don't host your data. An agent your team talks to only sees what the person using it can already see. Agents that run on their own use a dedicated service account, limited to the mailboxes, folders and systems the job needs, agreed with you in advance. We build in UK regions wherever Microsoft offers them, and anything that has to run elsewhere is set out for your compliance lead to approve before go-live. Microsoft doesn't use your Microsoft 365 content to train its foundation models, and every run is logged. The practical work is tightening access and sources before an agent works from them, and that is part of every build.

We're an accountancy practice, not an in-house finance team. Is this the right page?

Probably not. Our accountancy page covers six agents built for practices, from WIP and billing to client onboarding.

What does a finance agent cost?

The first step is a free 30-minute call. Builds are from £2,500, typically £2,500 to £15,000, fixed before anything is built. Discover, if you're not sure yet where agents would help, is £1,500 fixed, covering Design and credited back in full once your follow-on work passes £3,500 (ex VAT) within 90 days. Once live, your agents are looked after under Care at £295 a month for one live agent, or Embed from £750 a month covering up to three. Microsoft bills its own usage to your firm.

When in the month should a finance team introduce agents?

Not during a live close. Introduce a new agent in the quieter window, run it on a previous period first, then let the team lean on it through the next reporting cycle before judging it.

Talk through the first agent your firm would hand work to.

A free 30-minute call with James. No pitch and no obligation.

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