Analyse financial performance of a company

I need a concise financial performance dashboard for board review on Monday. Create a worksheet that shows month-to-date and year-to-date revenue, gross margin, EBITDA, cash burn, and headcount cost, with variance to budget and last year, and a note section for any one-off items affecting margins. Leave the raw trial balance hidden but check that all totals reconcile.

Before I circulate this to the CFO, make the performance sheet easier to approve: surface the three drivers of margin change at the top, make the budget variances readable without scrolling, flag any assumptions behind the EBITDA adjustments, and add a one-line explanation for any variance greater than 5%.

I pulled the updated sales and COGS feeds and the gross margin for May shows a negative swing inconsistent with sales reports. I don't know whether the problem is a mapping error, a duplicated COGS import, or a timing difference in revenue recognition. What diagnostic should I run first to pinpoint the error and avoid alarmingly sending wrong numbers to the CFO?

We repeatedly spend days chasing small margin variances because mappings and allocation rules break during feeds. Which recurring weakness—manual chart-of-accounts mappings, ad hoc adjustments, or lack of source-data checks—is most likely the root cause, and what single recurring control or habit would stop the time-consuming explanations?