Prospero Tools · Brief · How it works
How it works
Four steps. One artefact. Nothing retained.
Brief is single-purpose. No portal, no archive, no project rooms. You upload, you read, your file is gone. The briefing is yours to keep — by email or by copy — but our servers carry nothing beyond a tamper-evident audit hash.
01
Upload
One to three documents per brief, PDF or DOCX, up to 40 MB combined. Scanned-image-only PDFs are rejected by design — Prospero only analyses text it can redact for personal data first.
02
Set the lens
Pick the role you're reading as — non-executive director, executive director, or audit, remuneration or risk committee member — and tick the chair box if you chair the board or the relevant committee. Brief tailors the briefing to that role.
03
Briefing
A focused, role-aware briefing arrives in minutes. The legal entity is identified up front, followed by an overall health rating (green, amber or red) and eight sections in this order: decisions you're being asked to make, financials (critically analysed, not summarised), investments (material fund manager and advisor updates), compliance and regulatory, questions to ask, risks and red flags, what's missing from the pack, and time-sensitive items. Every bullet is tagged for who owns it and points to the page or agenda item.
04
Deletion
A live countdown shows the 60-minute deletion deadline. Your pack, the briefing and your inputs are deleted from our servers automatically. We keep a hashed, append-only audit log for two years — never the content.
What we don't do
Brief is not a board portal.
- · No long-term storage of board packs.
- · No distribution lists or acknowledgements.
- · No third-party telemetry or behavioural tracking.
- · No fine-print clause that lets us train on your content.
- · No long-form bio or stored profile to maintain.
- · No "share with colleague" workflow at launch.
A sample briefing
See the artefact before you commit time.
Illustrative sample — not generated from a real pack. Names and numbers are fictional.
Brief · Northshore Logistics plc · Audit & Risk Committee · 14 March
Lens: Audit committee member, chair · Health rating: amber
01
Decisions you're being asked to make
Approve the FY revisions to the internal-audit plan (Section 3, p.14). Endorse the auditor's proposed materiality of £2.4m (Section 4, p.22). Sign off the going-concern memo for the half-year accounts (Section 6, p.31). Vote on the appointment of M. Halloran as committee secretary (Agenda item 2, p.6).
02
Financials
Revenue £48.2m vs £52.1m prior period (-7.5%); EBITDA margin compressed from 14.2% to 11.6% (p.15). Cash £6.1m vs £9.4m (p.17); covenant headroom narrowed to 0.6x (p.27) — narrative on p.12 describes the cash position as 'steady', which the figures do not support. Trade receivables ageing >90 days up 41% QoQ (p.18) with no commentary.
03
Investments
Treasury portfolio managed by Coutts: total return +1.2% YTD vs +2.4% benchmark (p.34). Manager commentary flags concentration in two duration funds (>60% of mark-to-market). Q3 advisor letter referenced (p.33) but not appended.
04
Compliance & regulatory
UK Corporate Governance Code 2024 §4.2 — the pack assumes the new audit-committee reporting requirements apply this cycle; confirm with the company secretary. FRC Minimum Standard for Audit Committees referenced (p.26) but not appended. No competition or sanctions matters disclosed.
05
Questions to ask
Trade-receivables ageing has shifted materially against last quarter (p.18) without commentary — what is driving the deterioration? Why is the auditor's contract being extended without market test (p.24)? Has the Q3 supplier-onboarding near-miss (p.19) been reviewed independently?
06
Risks & red flags
Cash position narrative on p.12 reads steady but receivables ageing on p.18 and covenant headroom on p.27 are both moving the wrong way — flag the inconsistency. Whistleblowing log appears truncated — only Q3 is shown.
07
What's missing from the pack
IT-controls section refers to a Deloitte readiness review (p.28) but the review itself is not in the pack. Prior-meeting action on supplier-onboarding controls (carried forward from the November minutes) has no status update. Coutts Q3 advisor letter referenced (p.33) but not appended.
08
Time-sensitive items
Going-concern memo sign-off required before half-year results publication (due 28 March). Auditor contract decision deadline 31 March. Internal-audit plan approval required this cycle to keep Q1 fieldwork on schedule.
Your real briefing is delivered as a clean artefact you can email, copy or print, and is deleted from our servers within 60 minutes.