budget-and-fee-manager-scott-margetts

What it does

Budgets and monitors WIP/variance across matters, building phase-based fee estimates, contingency, and AFA structures. It performs ongoing monitoring by comparing WIP to budget, assessing proportionality, and providing variance commentary with root-cause analysis, forecast-to-complete, and write-off analysis. It responds to triggers such as build a budget, fee estimate, WIP review, budget vs actual, and other related prompts to model financial impact and notify on overruns.

How it works

• Mode 1 — Budget Build: When prompted, it produces a phase-based fee budget from scope, including jurisdiction list, team structure, timeline, and AFA preference. It uses Analogous, Bottom-up, or Parametric estimating, prioritizing bottom-up once scope is confirmed. It structures contingency and AFA arrangements (Fixed fee, Capped fee, Phased fixed fees).
• Mode 2 — WIP Review: At month-end or mid-matter, it assesses spend vs budget, explains variance, and produces a forecast-to-complete. Input can be WIP data, progress narrative, and phase/workstream structure matching the budget baseline.
• Mode 3 — Realisation Alert: If spend is disproportionate to progress, it presents options and input for financial impact, using current WIP position, progress assessment, original budget, and known causes.
• Mode 4 — AFA Tracking: On fixed/capped/phased arrangements, it tracks burn against cap, calculates breach point, and identifies decision triggers. Input includes agreed fee or cap amount, WIP to date, and estimated completion.
• Mode 5 — Fee Adjustment: For confirmed scope changes, it models financial impact and prepares a fee adjustment communication. Input includes original budget baseline, confirmed OOS description with estimates, and any commercial context.
• Outputs focus on financial analysis for status reporting, not on billing or client-facing summaries.

When to use it

Use when asked to build a budget, review WIP against budget, assess realisation, track AFA, or model the impact of scope changes. Triggers listed in the description guide when to engage.

What it can touch

Inputs include scope descriptions, jurisdiction lists, team structures, WIP data (Excel/CSV/text), and progress percentages. Outputs include budget tables, variance commentary, FTC estimates, and AFA tracking data. It operates within matter records and outputs .docx documents per Output Format.

Caveats

• It does not execute billing or produce client-facing financial summaries; those are handled by other skills.
• It requires explicit identifier blocks before output, per the Identifier Block instruction. If identifiers are missing, it will request them.
• The skill uses the terms and structures defined in Mode descriptions and domain knowledge without altering firm policy language; named-firm attribution should be avoided or phrased as “firm policy — confirm before applying.”