A monthly board pack for a group of companies: what goes on each page
The ten pages of a monthly group board pack, in the order a board reads them, with a worked income statement page against budget and what to leave out.
Part of: Statistical accounts and KPIs for groups: the complete guide
First published 7 Dec 2026. What changed on 7 Dec
- First published.
In this post 6 sections
In short
A monthly group board pack runs to about ten pages: headlines, the group income statement against budget, balance sheet and cash, each company’s contribution, KPIs, the latest estimate, open intercompany items, currency effects, decisions needed and the basis of preparation. Put the answer on page one and the detail behind it.
Key takeaways
- Page one answers the board’s question, in five numbers and three sentences. Everything else is support.
- Show actual against budget and the latest estimate on the same page, in the same currency, on the same group chart of accounts.
- Show each company’s contribution, so the board sees where the group figure came from.
- Say what is not final. Open intercompany items and unlocked months belong on a page, not in a footnote of an email.
What goes into a monthly board pack for a group?
A board pack is the same ten or so pages every month, so that the directors learn where to look. The order below puts the conclusion first and the evidence after it. Companies and boards differ, so treat the list as a starting point and remove a page rather than adding one that nobody reads.
- Headlines. Revenue, operating profit, cash and one or two KPIs against budget, and three sentences on what changed since last month.
- Group income statement. Actual, budget and variance for the month and the year to date, with the main variances explained.
- Balance sheet and cash. Group position, net debt or cash, and the movement in cash since last month.
- Company contribution. Revenue and operating profit by company, before and after eliminations, so the board sees which subsidiary moved the number. Where there is a minority shareholder, show the profit attributable to non-controlling interestsNon-controlling interestThe share of a subsidiary's equity and profit that belongs to owners outside the group.Open the glossary entry.
- KPIs. The handful of ratios the board follows, built from the accounts and the group’s statistics, with the prior year beside them.
- Latest estimate. The full-year outlook against budget, updated with actuals to date.
- Intercompany. Differences still open between companies, with an owner and a date for each.
- Currency. The rates used, and the movement in the translation reserveTranslation reserveThe part of group equity that holds exchange differences from translating a foreign subsidiary into the group's currency.Open the glossary entry for the month.
- Decisions and actions. What the board is asked to approve, and the status of earlier actions.
- Basis of preparation. Which months are locked, what changed since the last pack, and the accounting policies that matter for reading it.
What does the income statement page look like?
Page two is where most boards spend their time, so it earns the most care. It shows the group’s income statement, with the intragroup revenue and cost removed, translated at the group’s average rate for the month. Each line carries the budget and the variance, with adverse variances in brackets.
| Actual | Budget | Variance | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 2,980,840 | 3,050,000 | (69,160) |
| Cost of sales | (1,628,000) | (1,660,000) | 32,000 |
| Gross profit | 1,352,840 | 1,390,000 | (37,160) |
| Overheads | (655,802) | (650,000) | (5,802) |
| Operating profit | 697,038 | 740,000 | (42,962) |
Example group used across Finconsol guides. Actual revenue, costs and profit are the group’s September 2026 figures for all five companies after eliminations; the budget and the split of costs between cost of sales and overheads are illustrations. The example has no interest or tax lines, so operating profit is revenue less costs. Variance is actual less budget, so a favourable cost variance is positive and an adverse revenue variance is in brackets.
Revenue of 2,980,840 is the revenue of all five companies after the 81,000 of Zenvara’s services to Palmridge is removed. Against a budget of 3,050,000 it is 69,160 short. Cost of sales is 32,000 better than budget, so gross profit is 37,160 short, at a margin of 45.4 percent against a budgeted 45.6. Overheads are 5,802 over, which leaves operating profit 42,962 short of the 740,000 budget.
The three sentences on page one come from this table: revenue is 2.3 percent behind, about 62 percent of the revenue shortfall reaches profit, and cost of sales is the only line helping. A director who reads only page one knows what to ask about on page two.
| Actual | Budget | Variance | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 2,980,840 | 3,050,000 | (69,160) |
| Cost of sales | (1,628,000) | (1,660,000) | 32,000 |
| Gross profit | 1,352,840 | 1,390,000 | (37,160) |
| Overheads | (655,802) | (650,000) | (5,802) |
| Operating profit | 697,038 | 740,000 | (42,962) |
Free: Group board pack template
This free PowerPoint template lays out a monthly group board pack in twelve slides: summary, profit and loss against budget and latest estimate, cash, balance sheet, results by company, KPIs, intercompany and open items, risks and decisions. Every figure is an example from a fictional group and is marked as one.
- Twelve slides in a clean, ready-to-use layout, with tables and charts you can edit.
- The order a board expects: summary, profit and loss, cash, balance sheet, companies, KPIs, intercompany, risks, decisions.
What should be left out of a board pack?
- Account-level detail. The board needs lines and drivers, not a trial balance. Keep the detail for the appendix or for the finance team’s working papers.
- Every KPI the group could produce. Pick the ones that change decisions.
- Explanations of obvious variances. Explain the three largest only.
- Numbers that are not final and not labelled. If a month is open or a difference is unexplained, say so on page ten rather than hoping nobody asks.
How do you produce the pack without a week of copying?
Most of the effort in a board pack is not thinking. It is copying figures from the consolidation into slides and checking that they match. Three habits remove most of it.
- Fix the layout once. The same pages, the same order, the same chart of accounts, so that only the numbers change.
- Build from locked figures. Produce the pack after the month is locked, and record any change to a locked month afterwards.
- Keep budgets and estimates in the same structure as actuals. A variance column is only a subtraction when both sides use the same lines.
A group that does these three things can issue the pack on working day five or six. A group that does not will spend working day six reconciling the slides to the spreadsheet. The five-day close in the post on a five-day group close shows where the pack sits in the calendar.
How does Finconsol handle this?
Finconsol builds board packs from the group figures it already holds: the consolidated statements, company contribution, budgets and latest estimates, and the statistics and KPIs. The pack is laid out once and refreshed each month from the locked figures, so the page you see in the product and the page in the pack show the same numbers.
Once the board has read a pack it is locked, so the numbers cannot move, and closes, locks, mappings and settings are recorded in the change log. Zoho Books companies are read directly, read only, with a nightly refresh. Xero and QuickBooks companies come in by trial balance upload today, with a direct connection coming soon, and any other system comes in by trial balance.
Questions
How long should a monthly board pack be?
Ten pages is a workable target for a group: one page of headlines, a handful of financial pages, a page of KPIs, and a page each for open items, decisions and the basis of preparation. Move detail to an appendix.
What is the difference between a KPI dashboard and a board pack?
A dashboard shows current measures and is looked at when someone wants to. A board pack is a fixed set of pages issued on a date, with commentary and decisions. The same figures can feed both.
Should a group board pack show each subsidiary?
Yes, in a contribution page that shows revenue and operating profit by company. It tells the board which subsidiary moved the group figure and shows the effect of eliminations.
When should the board pack be issued?
After the month is locked, usually on working day five or six. Issuing earlier means issuing numbers that may change, and a pack that changes after it is sent loses the board’s trust.
Sources
- IFRS 10 Consolidated Financial Statements, paragraph B86(c), on eliminating intragroup income and expenses.
Prabhu, A. (2026, 7 December). A monthly board pack for a group of companies: what goes on each page. The Finconsol Blog. https://finconsol.com/blog/monthly-board-pack-for-a-group/
Amit Prabhu leads Finconsol at Aaxonix Tech, a Zoho and NetSuite implementation partner based in Pune, India. He works with multi-company groups and the accountants who serve them on closing many sets of books into one set of group numbers.