Précis

FP&A reporting in Excel

Keep the workbook. Change how the figures arrive.

The Précis Excel add-in brings live, read-only financial statements, metrics, scenarios and hierarchy members into the grid. The workbook remains the place finance inspects and presents the work; retrieval and financial definitions no longer need to be rebuilt in every file.

See the Excel workflow Read the function reference
  • Live spills
  • Governed definitions
  • Read-only functions
  • Desktop and web
Précis for Excel with a statement formula spilling Actual, Budget and Variance columns into a formatted workbook grid.
Live statement spill · NovaTech sample data

A first-class finance surface

Excel is where the team picks up what the systems cannot carry.

The familiar problem

The workbook owns too much

Copied exports, hidden mappings, stale tabs and definitions that exist only inside one file make each reporting cycle harder to inspect.

The governed route

The workbook consumes approved structures

Finance keeps the flexible grid while statements, metrics, scenarios and member lists arrive through one governed read layer.

Live worksheet functions

Ask for the statement, metric or member list—not another extract.

Précis functions return finance structures at the requested period, scenario and grain. A ribbon action applies Précis formatting to the result, and Refresh rebuilds live blocks and member lists.

Review the function signatures →
PRECIS.STATEMENTReturn a governed financial statement as a dynamic spill.
PRECIS.METRICRetrieve one or more approved metrics at the requested grain.
PRECIS.SCENARIOSDiscover the actual, plan and forecast scenarios available to the user.
PRECIS.KPISShow the governed finance vocabulary available to the workbook.
PRECIS.HIERARCHYReturn approved members and provision live lists for workbook controls.

One definition across interfaces

A workbook should not need its own version of gross margin.

The Excel functions call the same read-only finance tools used by other Précis clients. Statements, metrics, scenarios and hierarchies resolve through the same catalogue definitions, semantic views and permitted scope.

The add-in does not calculate a financial answer in JavaScript or ask a language model to generate the number. It renders the structured result returned by the governed engine.

How to prepare management reporting without replacing Excel →
Raw tables require a client to infer financial meaning, while semantic views and a governed catalogue give Excel and other interfaces one explicit definition.
Excel is one consumer of the governed route; it does not own a separate finance definition.

One instance, one identity model

Excel follows the deployment that served it.

The server hosts the add-in bundle and announces its connection and OIDC configuration. Tokens remain in the Office shared-runtime session; they are not written to the workbook or disk.

  1. 01

    Install

    Add the Office manifest for the customer instance.

  2. 02

    Sign in

    Authenticate through the Office dialog and configured identity provider.

  3. 03

    Retrieve

    Call statements, metrics or member lists within the user's scope.

  4. 04

    Refresh

    Rebuild live blocks deliberately when the underlying data changes.

The add-in works in supported desktop Excel and Excel on the web. Installation uses the Office manifest for the customer instance.

A deliberate boundary

Worksheet functions retrieve. They do not commit.

Permitted read path

  • Retrieve a governed statement or metric.
  • Discover scenarios, KPIs and hierarchy members.
  • Refresh a structured result within the caller's scope.

Not a worksheet operation

  • Create or change a planning scenario.
  • Write values into a finance system.
  • Bypass the platform's permission gates.

Questions finance teams ask

The practical boundary, before a pilot begins.

Which Précis functions are available in Excel?

The current add-in provides read-only functions for governed statements, metrics, scenarios, KPIs and hierarchy members. Statement and metric functions return structured results; hierarchy functions can also provide live member lists for workbook controls.

Does the add-in work in desktop Excel and Excel on the web?

Yes. The current add-in is designed for supported desktop Excel clients and Excel on the web. The customer deployment serves the add-in bundle and its connection configuration.

How are live blocks refreshed?

A Refresh action rebuilds the Précis formula blocks and member lists in the workbook. The period, scenario and filters remain explicit in the request rather than being inferred from a pasted extract.

How does sign-in work?

Users sign in through the Office dialog using the identity provider configured for their Précis instance. Tokens remain in the Office shared-runtime session and are not written to the workbook or disk.

Can an Excel formula change a plan or scenario?

No. The hosted worksheet functions are read-only. They cannot create a scenario, change a plan or bypass the platform's permission gates. Any future write-back workflow would be a separate, explicitly controlled process.

How is the add-in installed?

The add-in is installed using an Office manifest for the customer instance. The manifest points Excel to the add-in bundle and connection configuration served by that deployment.

Does this replace the management-reporting workbook?

No. The workbook can remain the place finance inspects and presents recurring work. Précis changes the route by which governed figures and approved finance structures arrive in it.

Start with one workbook finance already has to refresh.

Bring the recurring statement, comparison or member list. We will show how the governed read route fits around the workbook.

Discuss the workbook Read the Excel documentation