This feature is included with Fathom Pro - the plan with access to all of Fathom's features. Companies on Portfolio can be upgraded to Fathom Pro at any time.

🎉 Beta feature: The Commentary Writer is in beta. To enable this functionality, you must turn on the beta flag.

What is the Commentary Writer?

With the Commentary Writer, you can quickly add clear, data-based commentary to your management reports. It uses the data you choose and the context you provide to craft commentary that is accurate and tailored to your business.

Unlike general AI chatbots, the Commentary Writer is designed for one purpose: to help you explain and clarify the financial and non-financial results in your reports.

It generates commentary on demand that can easily be checked for accuracy.

How to use the Commentary Writer

Before you can use the Commentary Writer, it must be turned on for your organisation.

Quick Workflow

Generate commentary in the report based on the components you select.
Refine the commentary.
Add the commentary to the report.

Recommended Workflow

We recommend the following workflow when generating custom report commentary:

Add the Business Context. This is optional but recommended for more detailed and relevant commentary.
Add the Report Context. This is optional but recommended for more detailed and relevant commentary.
Generate commentary based on the report components you select.
Refine the commentary.
Add the commentary to your report.

💡Smart Tip: Read through our list of best practices for using the Commentary Writer.

Business & Report Context

The Commentary Writer only sees the numbers and context you provide. If you don’t give it context, the commentary it crafts will be generic.

The tool can use two types of background information to guide its writing: Business Context and Report Context.

When you generate commentary in a report, the tool automatically includes this background information. You can turn it off for individual topics or chats if you want.

Business Context	Report Context
Persistent or slow‑changing information about the business.	Information for the reporting period or report.
Can be used to tailor commentary for every report created for the business.	Can be used to tailor commentary for a specific report.
Set in Company Settings	Set in Report Settings
Likely updated occasionally (e.g., quarterly, yearly)	Likely updated per report cycle
Examples: More medium-to-long term or persistent goals, strategy, market conditions, and the business’s general position.	Examples: One‑off events, seasonal demand shift, short-term change in focus or strategy, or report type.

Add Business Context

To add the Business Context for a company:

Go to the Company Settings.
Select Company Profile on the left sidebar.
Fill out the Business Context.
Save.
When using the Commentary Writer in a Pro Report:
1. Click the Stacked lines with dots icon in the lower left corner of the tool.
2. Ensure Business Context is toggled on before generating commentary. Toggling it on ensures the context is used for the specific chat or topic.

The Business Context is divided into categories to help you add the right details for your business.

Here are some examples of Business Context:

Type of Business Context	What it is
Goals	The key, persistent goal(s) for the business. You can include more temporary goals in the Report Context. Goals can include thresholds you want to meet, such as annual revenue figures or the number of customers. You can also include an owner’s goals, such as exiting and selling the business in a certain number of years.
Strategy	The medium-to-long term strategy the business is planning to use to achieve its goals. Temporary shifts in strategy can be included in the Report Context. Strategy can include geographic expansion (opening additional locations or targeting customers in new regions), developing new products, offering more services, and/or making use of new technology.
Market conditions	Persistent industry factors. Temporary factors can be included in the Report Context. Market conditions can include labour availability, fluctuations in interest rates or costs of materials, technological innovation or adoption in the market, and the overall economic climate.
Current position	The general position of the business. A good way to think about the current position is using it to define where the business is now compared to its goals. The current position can include the business’s market segment, employee headcount, the number of business locations, the business life cycle stage, and/or its main source(s) of funding.
Other	Any additional context you would like to include. 💡Smart Tip: You can include instructions on spelling for the commentary, such as “Use British spelling when generating commentary.”

📝 Note: The Commentary Writer has already been given the persona of a financial professional writing report commentary. We do not recommend instructing it to take on another persona.

Add Report Context

To add the Report Context for a report:

In a Pro report, click the Cog/Gear icon on the left sidebar.
Enter the Report Context.
Apply changes.
When using the Commentary Writer in a Pro Report:
1. Click the Stacked lines with dots icon in the lower left corner of the tool.
2. Ensure Report Context is toggled on before generating commentary. Toggling it on ensures the context is used for the specific chat or topic.

When considering including Report Context, you can ask yourself:

Are there any key factors that impacted results during the reporting period that should be included in the report's commentary?

Is this a specific type of report for a specific audience? Is it an investor pack, board pack, monthly operations report, etc.?

Are there any more short-term goals, strategies, or market conditions that influenced the reporting period?

Generate report commentary

The Commentary Writer can be used for drafting commentary in individual Pro reports. It cannot be used in Summary Reports or templates, but it can be used in Pro reports created from templates.

To generate commentary with the Commentary Writer:

In a Pro Report, click the Sparkly Speech Bubble icon on the left sidebar.
Add components to the report and select components for commentary:
1. Hover over a component and click the checkbox in the upper left corner or
2. Click the Components option at the bottom of the prompt box to select from a list of the components in your report.
  
  📝 Note: You can select up to 6 components at a time. You can only select certain types of components.
Click on the Stacked lines with dots icon in the lower left corner of the Commentary Writer for additional options before generating commentary (optional).
1. Toggle on or off the Business Context and/or Report Context. If toggled on, the Commentary Writer will take the context into account when writing commentary.
2. Pick a style for the commentary: Simple or technical.
3. Pick a length for the commentary: Concise or detailed.
Write your own prompt or select one from the prompt library using the Book icon at the bottom of the tool.
Refine the commentary, as needed, with additional prompts.
Click Add to report at the bottom of the generated commentary to insert it directly into the report.

You can also click the Clipboard icon to copy the commentary and paste it elsewhere.

Once the commentary has been added to the report, you can double-click it to type in your own notes or make some changes.

💡Smart Tip: Read through our list of best practices for using the Commentary Writer.

Refine your commentary

When refining commentary with additional instructions, be as specific as possible and use correct grammar and punctuation. The tool will understand your instructions better if your intent is clear.

Change emphasis

If the Commentary Writer is not focusing on the right information, you can tell it to change what it highlights.

Examples: To change the prioritisation or emphasis of the commentary, type in follow-up prompts like:

Focus more on the Revenue results than the Gross Profit.

Focus less on the business’s goals and more on market conditions and the business’s current position.
- You need these components of Business Context for this prompt to work.

Focus more on trends than current results.

📝 Note: If you want the commentary to focus on trends, you must provide sufficient data for the selected components. For example, if you’re generating commentary from a Profit & Loss table, the table must include results for the current period and/or previous periods to be able to comment on trends.

Change style

The Commentary Writer tends to generate a lot of commentary by default, even when the concise style is selected. You can refine its style with additional prompts.

Examples: To change the style of the commentary, type in follow-up prompts like:

Be more concise.

Use less financial jargon.

📝 Note: The Commentary Writer has already been given the persona of a financial professional writing report commentary. We do not recommend instructing it to take on another persona.

Remove mentions of prompts

Sometimes, the Commentary Writer will highlight or show you how it followed a prompt within its commentary.

Example: You can direct the tool to leave out prompt references.

Prioritise the Report Context over the Business Context without mentioning that you are prioritising the Report Context over the Business Context.

Manually edit commentary

If you want to type changes to the notes yourself, you must first add them to your report or copy and paste them elsewhere. You can use placeholders to quickly reference results as you're typing.

Check the accuracy of your commentary

You can hover over the blue highlights in generated commentary to determine their source. Learn more about this in our ‘Verify the Commentary Writer's accuracy’ article.

Learn more:

Fathom's Commentary Writer