Problem Statement

Board packs should be fast, factual, and consistent.

In monthly board reporting and executive reviews, finance teams spend disproportionate time - pulling data, cleaning exports, and formatting documents.

Manual compilation from accounting systems into board-ready packs increases cycle time, introduces inconsistency, and distracts the team from analysis and decision support.

Solution

To address these challenges, the CFO/CXO Board Pack Auto-Composer provides a secure, automation-first workflow that extracts financials from source systems, applies redaction and structure, generates analysis, and assembles a formatted board pack.

Orchestration is built on n8n, with Notion as the trigger and status layer, QuickBooks API for financial data, Google Apps Script for redaction and document formatting, and Google Drive for storage and distribution.

This automation turns raw ledger data into a clean, shareable pack with commentary in minutes.

Overview

Board packs are critical for governance, investor communication, and operational discipline.

The Auto-Composer streamlines this process by programmatically retrieving core reports, standardizing tables and visuals, and producing a board-ready Google Doc and PPT with consistent branding and commentary.

The workflow is designed for repeatability across clients and months, with audit-friendly logs and secure handling of credentials.

Key Features

1. Automated Data Extraction from Source Systems
2. Pulls Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow, AR Aging, Trial Balance, General Ledger directly via QuickBooks Online API.
3. Supports date windows passed from Notion, with automatic month folder creation in Drive.
4. Data Redaction and Governance Layer
5. Google Apps Script replaces predefined sensitive terms from a Redaction_Config sheet before any AI step in.
6. Ensures labels are anonymized while numeric integrity remains intact for analysis.
7. AI-Assisted Commentary and Insight Generation
8. Generates concise summaries on revenue, margin, working capital, and cash drivers using structured, redacted inputs.
9. Prompts are bound to tabular facts with cite-back to sections, reducing narrative drifts.
10. Document Assembly and Formatting
11. Formats a Google Doc with cover page, table of contents, section headings, tables from “|” delimited content, and a Visual Presentation section.
12. Auto-fills Company Name, Prepared By, and Date of Issue. Exports PDF for immutable records.
13. Orchestration and Status Tracking
14. Notion triggers runs on schedule or manual click, stores period parameters, and receives links back to the final Doc.
15. Branch-level retries and error flags allow selective reruns of failed report pulls.
16. One-Click Month-End Pack Generation
17. Scans a designated month folder, runs parallel report branches, applies redaction, produces commentary, and assembles the final board pack in minutes.
18. Security and Confidentiality Controls
19. Credentials are encrypted at rest in n8n and decrypted only at runtime.
20. Redaction executes before AI processing.
21. Drive permissions and month-stamped folders maintain controlled access and traceability.

Use Cases For

1. Boards and Founders, Consistent monthly packs with trusted numbers, variance commentary, and visuals.
2. CFO and FP&A Teams, Faster close reviews, standardized analytics, and reduced formatting workload.
3. Audit and Compliance Review, Immutable PDFs, clear source mapping, and repeatable generation steps.
4. Multi-client Firms, Replicable template across clients with only the extraction and mapping nodes adjusted.

Data Security and Confidentiality Measures

The automation workflow was deployed on a privately managed n8n instance hosted on owned Hostinger Cloud, ensuring full data ownership and control.

All API credentials and access tokens (QuickBooks, Google, and Notion) are encrypted at rest within the n8n environment using built-in encryption protocols and decrypted only at runtime for authenticated API calls.

To enhance data privacy before AI processing or document generation, a redaction layer was integrated via Google Apps Script.

This layer automatically replaces predefined client-sensitive terms (company names, project codes, internal notes, etc.) with placeholders before the data leaves the secured processing environment.

Together, encryption safeguards credentials and transport security, while redaction ensures that no identifiable or confidential information is exposed in generated reports, summaries, or AI-based analysis.

Link to Notion for DIY

https://www.notion.so/Board-Pack-Simulation-28f415a14b4481e2ba57c5a977728b7e

Conclusion

The CFO Board Pack Auto-Composer transforms board reporting into a secure and repeatable workflow.

By combining API-level data pulls, a redaction layer, AI-assisted analysis, and automated document formatting, it delivers board-ready packs in minutes, reduces rework, and raises the consistency of insights across stakeholders.

This is a practical, scalable approach for finance teams that want to spend more time advising on decisions and less time wrestling with exports and formatting.