data-reconciliation

by benchflow-ai

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SKILL.md About

# Data Reconciliation for Spreadsheets

Techniques for recovering missing values from financial and tabular data using mathematical constraints.

## Core Principles

### 1. Row/Column Sum Constraints
When totals are provided, missing values can be recovered:

```
Missing = Total - Sum(Known Values)
```

Example: If a row sums to 1000 and you know 3 of 4 values (200, 300, 400), the missing value is:
```
Missing = 1000 - (200 + 300 + 400) = 100
```

### 2. Year-over-Year (YoY) Change Recovery
When you have percentage changes between periods:

```
Current = Previous × (1 + YoY_Change/100)
```

To recover a previous value from current:
```
Previous = Current / (1 + YoY_Change/100)
```

### 3. Percentage Share Recovery
When you know a value's share of the total:

```
Value = Total × (Share/100)
```

Example: If total budget is 50000 and a department's share is 20%:
```
Value = 50000 × 0.20 = 10000
```

### 4. Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR)
For multi-year growth analysis:

```
CAGR = ((End_Value / Start_Value)^(1/years) - 1) × 100
```

Example: If Year 1 was 1000 and Year 5 is 1500 (4 years of growth):
```
CAGR = ((1500/1000)^(1/4) - 1) × 100 = 10.67%
```

To recover a start or end value:
```
End = Start × (1 + CAGR/100)^years
Start = End / (1 + CAGR/100)^years
```

### 5. Cross-Validation
Always verify recovered values:
- Do row totals match column totals?
- Are percentage shares consistent?
- Do YoY changes recalculate correctly?

## Recovery Strategy

1. **Identify constraints**: What mathematical relationships exist?
2. **Find solvable cells**: Which missing values have enough information?
3. **Solve in order**: Some values may depend on others (chain dependencies)
4. **Validate**: Check all constraints still hold

## Chain Dependencies

Sometimes you must solve values in a specific order:
- Recover budget value A from Sheet 1
- Use A to calculate YoY percentage in Sheet 2
- Use that percentage to verify or calculate another value

Always map out dependencies before starting.

## Common Patterns in Budget Data

| Constraint Type | Formula | When to Use |
|-----------------|---------|-------------|
| Sum to total | `Missing = Total - Σ(known)` | Missing one component |
| YoY forward | `New = Old × (1 + %/100)` | Know previous + change |
| YoY backward | `Old = New / (1 + %/100)` | Know current + change |
| Share of total | `Part = Total × share%` | Know total + percentage |
| CAGR | `((End/Start)^(1/n)-1)×100` | Multi-year growth rate |