Published on August 28, 2025.

A Trend & Growth Analysis Report looks beyond single-period snapshots to understand how a company’s performance evolves over time. It highlights:
• Trends in revenues, expenses, and margins.
• Growth rates compared month-over-month (MoM), year-over-year (YoY), and year-to-date (YTD).
• Comparisons across product lines, regions, or services to identify winners and laggards.
• Signals of sustainability (or risk), such as margin compression, liquidity shifts, or rising debt.

Companies perform this analysis because it answers critical questions: Is growth accelerating or stalling? Is it profitable? Are resources being deployed efficiently? In other words, it’s an early warning and opportunity-spotting tool for executives.

What This Post Covers

In this post, I’m going to walk you through the steps I took using Claude and the NetSuite AI Connector to generate a Trend & Growth Analysis Report. I’ll share the prompt that I used, a tip for making reports look polished, the importance of the data that was analyzed, and more.

How the Report Was Generated

Inside Claude, I connected to NetSuite via the AI Connector and gave it a refined prompt.

Here’s the prompt I used:

You are a senior financial analyst. 

Your goal is to prepare a comprehensive “Trend & Growth Analysis Report,” which will be used to:
• Identify growth trends (revenues, expenses, net income).
• Analyze profitability (margins, returns).
• Track asset, liability, and equity movements.
• Calculate liquidity, leverage, and efficiency ratios.
• Highlight MoM, YoY, and YTD comparisons.

The analysis will be based on the following reports:
• Comparative Balance Sheet (covering current month, prior month, same month last year, current YTD, prior YTD)
• Comparative Income Statement (covering the same periods)

Those reports can be found in our File Cabinet, in a folder named "SuiteReports."

Use the data provided to deliver a board-ready, professional-quality report with the following structure:

1. Executive Summary
• High-level overview of overall financial position and performance.
• Key trends, major changes, and most important insights.

2. Revenue & Sales Growth Trends
• Month-over-month, year-over-year, and YTD revenue growth.
• Highlight drivers of growth or decline.
• Note any seasonal or cyclical effects.

3. Profitability Analysis
• Gross profit, operating income, and net income trends.
• Margin analysis (gross, operating, net).
• YTD vs prior YTD profitability comparisons.

4. Expense Analysis
• Major expense categories (SG&A, R&D, etc.).
• Dollar and percentage changes (MoM, YoY, YTD).
• Efficiency metrics (expenses as % of revenue).

5. Balance Sheet Trends
• Key assets (cash, receivables, inventory) and liabilities (short/long-term debt).
• Movements in equity.
• Liquidity ratios (current ratio, quick ratio).
• Leverage ratios (debt-to-equity, debt-to-assets).

6. Growth Ratios & KPIs
• Revenue growth rates (MoM, YoY, YTD).
• Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE).
• Working capital changes and efficiency indicators.

7. Cash Flow Implications (from trends observed)
• Indirect insights into operating, investing, and financing activities.
• Working capital shifts that impact cash.

8. Trend Visualizations
• Include charts or tables where possible (revenue/profit trends, margin changes, asset/liability comparisons).

9. Risks & Opportunities
• Areas of concern (e.g., rising expenses, weakening liquidity, increasing debt).
• Potential opportunities (e.g., strong revenue growth, margin improvements, improved efficiency).

10. Conclusion & Recommendations
• Summary of insights.
• Clear, actionable recommendations for management.

Also include:
• Comparisons in both dollar and percentage terms (absolute change and relative growth).
• Common-size financials (express income statement items as % of revenue, balance sheet items as % of total assets).
• Graphs & visuals (line charts, bar charts, and tables to support findings).
• Callouts for anomalies (unexpected spikes, declines, or outliers).
• Forward-looking commentary (what current trends might mean for the near future).

Formatting & Style Requirements
• Present the report in clear sections with professional headings.
• Provide comparisons in both absolute ($) and relative (%) terms.
• Where appropriate, include common-size financials (income statement items as % of revenue, balance sheet items as % of assets).
• Call out anomalies and unusual variances explicitly.
• Write in a polished, consulting-style tone, as if presenting to senior executives or the Board of Directors.

Please apply the attached Branding & Formatting Guidelines.

Why This Prompt Works

This is a strong prompt for several reasons:
1. Clear scope: It explicitly lists the reports to use and the periods to analyze.
2. Structured output: It defines a report framework — from Executive Summary through Conclusion & Recommendations — mirroring a consulting-style deliverable.
3. Balanced detail: It requests both absolute ($) and relative (%) comparisons, plus common-size financials.
4. Forward-looking: It pushes Claude to include commentary on risks, opportunities, and implications.
5. Consistency with audience: By specifying “board-ready” and “consulting-style tone,” it nudges Claude to write in a style fit for executives.

Together, these elements guide the AI toward a polished, comprehensive deliverable instead of a generic data dump.

Branding Guidelines and Their Impact

Here are the branding guidelines I provided:

Branding & Formatting Guidelines

Tone & Style: 
• Minimalist, modern, and polished. 
• Avoid clutter. 
• Use short sentences, precise wording, and whitespace to guide attention.

Voice: 
• Neutral and professional, with a focus on clarity. 
• Present facts first, then insights.

Design Guidelines:
• Heavy use of whitespace. 
• Use simple typography: clear headings, light body text.
• Avoid shading, gradients, or ornate borders.
• Call out only the most important numbers in bold or with accent color.
• Color Palette:
	- Base: White (#FFFFFF)
	- Text: Charcoal (#212121)
	- Accent: Electric Blue (#007AFF) 
		— use sparingly for emphasis (charts, key metrics, recommendations).
	- Neutral: Light Gray (#EAEAEA) — for subtle table borders or dividers.

Charts & Graphs:
• Use single-color line charts for trends.
• Use monochrome bar charts with accent highlights for comparisons.
• Avoid pie/donut charts — stick to clean, linear visuals.
• Keep axes and labels minimal but legible.

Branding Details:
• Place the company name in small text at the bottom-right of each report.
• Avoid logos or watermarks unless explicitly requested.

Caveats & Transparency: 
• Call out risks and assumptions clearly, but in subdued formatting (italic text or a light-gray info box).

These guidelines are minimal, modern, and data-centric — and you can clearly see their influence in the finished report:
• Whitespace & typography: Light fonts, plenty of breathing room, and simple headings make dense content easy to scan.
• Accent color sparingly: Key numbers (like revenue growth, net loss, and margins) are highlighted in accent blue, drawing attention without overwhelming.
• Tables & visuals: Clean tables with subtle dividers keep the report professional, while bar and line-style charts provide clarity without clutter.
• Risks & transparency: Risks and assumptions are visually separated using shaded boxes (orange for warnings, green for opportunities).

The result is a report that doesn’t just read well — it looks board-ready.

The finished report is available here:
https://timdietrich.me/resources/blog-assets-2025/20250828---trend_growth_report.html

Highlights from the Finished Report

The finished Trend & Growth Analysis Report is packed with insights. Here are a few key highlights:
• Revenue Growth: YTD revenue doubled (+113% YoY to $12.3M), driven by new streams like Design & Consultancy (+43,104%) and Furniture Hire (+27,787%). August alone saw a 103% MoM surge.
• Profitability Concerns: Despite top-line growth, the company reported a YTD net loss of -$1.54M, with net margins sliding to -12.5%. Gross margin collapsed from 100% to 40.7%.
• Expenses: Operating expenses ballooned to $5.6M YTD (46% of revenue), led by new spending in salaries ($1.1M), advertising ($1.4M), and bad debt ($793K).
• Liquidity & Balance Sheet: Cash climbed to $41.4M (+22% YTD), but accounts receivable jumped 600%, straining collections. Current ratio fell from 14.1x to 4.7x.
• Ratios:
   • Debt-to-equity rose from 0.08 to 0.27.
   • ROA (-3.0%) and ROE (-3.8%) turned negative.
   • AR Days Outstanding worsened to 35.5 days.
   • Inventory turnover improved to 0.49x.
• Cash Flow Signals: Despite losses, working capital shifts yielded a net $2.0M cash source, thanks to payables, deferred revenue, and inventory reduction.
• Opportunities: August returned to profitability (+$755K) and diversification into Design & Consultancy (20% of revenue) provides growth upside.
• Recommendations: The report calls for urgent cost restructuring (lower OpEx to ~25% of revenue), margin recovery programs, credit management policies, and a focus on profitable segments like consulting.

The combination of hard numbers, ratio analysis, and strategic recommendations shows how an AI-generated report can go beyond raw data into board-level storytelling.

The Key Ingredient: Real Reports

The reason this analysis worked so well isn’t just the AI or the formatting — it’s the data source. Claude was analyzing real NetSuite reports, not CSV exports or ad-hoc SQL.

That matters because:
• Completeness: Standard reports capture adjustments, eliminations, and system logic that SQL queries may miss.
• Accuracy: Financial statements reflect GAAP/IFRS treatments; raw queries often don’t.
• Trust: Executives already rely on these reports. Using them ensures the AI is aligned with management’s view of the books.

Without real reports, no matter how good the AI looks, you can’t guarantee the numbers are right — and that means you can’t guarantee the analysis.

How the Reports Were Provided

Claude accessed the data through two mechanisms:
• File Cabinet Custom Tool: A free script I released that lets Claude securely access NetSuite File Cabinet reports. (Learn more in this blog post.)
• SuiteReports: In this instance, SuiteReports was enabled — automatically running NetSuite’s financial reports nightly and saving them to the File Cabinet. This ensured the Comparative Balance Sheet and Income Statement were always fresh and available for analysis.

Wrapping Up

This Trend & Growth Analysis Report is a real example of what happens when you combine:
• Claude’s analytical capabilities
• The NetSuite AI Connector’s secure access
• Real NetSuite reports

The result: A professional-grade analysis with growth insights, ratio diagnostics, risks, opportunities, and actionable recommendations — all presented in a polished, brand-consistent format.