Flux analysis

Every account against last quarter and last year, flagged at your threshold and explained in dollars from the ledger. Balance sheet rolled forward to the income statement

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XLSXDOCX14 steps

The problem

Diesel hit $6.53 a gallon in September and moved sales, delivery expense and inventory

Diesel runs through three lines: surcharge in net sales, fuel in delivery expense, and freight in capitalized into inventory until the stock sells. J.B. Hunt's Q2 revenue rose 19 percent, 11 percent without fuel surcharge. A flux that calls sales growth volume, blames diesel for delivery expense with no gallons behind it, or misses the September price still in inventory will not survive the auditors' review or MD&A

The request

Q3 is closed. Run Bramble's flux. We're a $1.1 billion foodservice distributor, nine distribution centers and 500 tractors, billing customers a fuel surcharge reset weekly off the DOE diesel index. Every TB account: balance sheet at September 30 against June 30 and December 31, income statement Q3 against Q2 and Q3 last year. Flag anything over $250k and 10 percent and explain at least 80 percent of each in dollars from journals and subledgers. Diesel drove the quarter: split surcharge out of net sales, delivery fuel into gallons and price, and tie the diesel in our FIFO inventory to cost of sales. For the auditors' review and our MD&A, in Q2's format. Flag posting errors, never explain them. Files attached.

TB by quarter Sep25 to Sep26.xlsx
GL detail Q3 25 to Q3 26.xlsx
Q2 26 flux.xlsx
Q2 26 10-Q.pdf
Subledger reconciliations Sep26.xlsx
Fuel card transactions Q3 25 to Q3 26.xlsx
Fuel surcharge billing Q3 25 to Q3 26.xlsx
Cases and route miles Q3 25 to Q3 26.xlsx

How Axe works

ApprovedChanges asked

Your reviewApprove, or say what to change

Approved or changes

Flux workbook and memoWorkbook, memo and tie out report

Final reviewApprove the revised files

Revised flux workbook and memoRevised files and tie out report

Step

Trace diesel through the accounts

Prompt

Sent to the model at this step

Diesel runs through net sales, delivery expense, inventory and cost of sales, and all of them have to be explained on the same prices and the same gallons. Pull EIA's weekly retail diesel price, the national average and the regions our distribution centers sit in, for every week from July 2025 to September 2026, and the September Short-Term Energy Outlook. The national average was $6.529 a gallon for the week of September 21 and $6.382 for September 28; confirm both on EIA's own table. Net sales: split the change against Q2 and Q3 last year into fuel surcharge and the rest, from the surcharge billing file. Recompute each customer's surcharge from its contract formula, the index week it references and the cases or miles billed, and list any customer billed off the wrong week or rate. Split the rest into cases and price per case, so MD&A can say how much of the change is price and how much volume, as Item 303 of Regulation S-K asks. Delivery expense: split the fuel line into gallons and price per gallon from the fuel card file, against both periods. Set gallons against route miles by distribution center; miles per gallon outside its usual range points to miscoding, a missing card file or fuel bought off the card program. Tie fuel card spend to the GL fuel accounts by distribution center and month. Inventory and cost of sales: inventory is on FIFO, so diesel in inbound freight is capitalized into inventory and reaches cost of sales only as the stock turns. Compute freight in per case by month, the freight in held in September 30 inventory at late September prices, and how much of Q3's freight in reached cost of sales, so the inventory flux and the cost of sales flux each carry their own diesel price. Size the effect on gross margin. Recovery: set surcharge billed against fuel cost week by week. The surcharge resets off a lagged index, so recovery trails cost while diesel rises and runs ahead as it falls; show net fuel recovery for Q3, Q2 and Q3 last year. Check our classification against how Sysco, US Foods and Performance Food Group present fuel surcharges and fuel cost in their latest 10-Q and 10-K. Put it all on a Fuel bridge tab that ties to the trial balance accounts it explains, and write the fuel explanations into those accounts' lines.

Uses

Business
Gl detail
Subledger reconciliations
Fuel card gallons
Surcharge billing
Cases and route miles
Flux workbook

Produces

Flux workbook
Fuel findings

What you get back

XLSXFlux workbookTB tie, balance sheet and income statement flux with explanations, fuel bridge, rollforwards

DOCXFlux memoMovements that matter, fuel effects, balance sheet, posting errors and proposed MD&A wording

Tie out reportOpen items first, then every figure marked tied or corrected, with its source

Make it yours

Set your thresholds and comparison periods, map your chart of accounts, or swap the fuel bridge for your own biggest driver. Every step and every prompt can be edited

Customize this Agent

Opens a private copy of this Agent in your workspace, ready to adapt to your own sources

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