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Budget vs Actual Template (Excel) — Variance Analysis, Free
Revenue and costs, planned and actual, with the gap in euros and in percent — and a cumulative row that shows the drift you would never notice one month at a time.
The download
Free download
Download: Budget vs actual
- Plan and actual on separate rows, never overwritten
- Variance in euros and as a percentage
- Result variance, so revenue and cost misses net off
- A cumulative row for the drift across the year
No email, no sign-up. Formulas already wired up.
The sheet itself
- Plan and actual on separate rows, never overwritten
- Variance in euros and as a percentage
- Result variance, so revenue and cost misses net off
- A cumulative row for the drift across the year
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Budget vs actual | |||||||||||||
| 2 | Fill in the blue cells — every other cell is a formula and works itself out. foreqast.app | |||||||||||||
| 3 | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | ||
| 4 | ||||||||||||||
| 5 | €40,000 | €42,000 | €45,000 | €45,000 | €47,000 | €50,000 | €50,000 | €44,000 | €48,000 | €52,000 | €60,000 | €58,000 | ||
| 6 | €38,400 | €43,100 | €44,200 | €41,800 | €48,600 | €47,300 | €52,400 | €40,900 | €49,800 | €50,100 | €57,600 | €61,200 | ||
| 7 | €-1,600 | €1,100 | €-800 | €-3,200 | €1,600 | €-2,700 | €2,400 | €-3,100 | €1,800 | €-1,900 | €-2,400 | €3,200 | ||
| 8 | -4.0 % | 2.6 % | -1.8 % | -7.1 % | 3.4 % | -5.4 % | 4.8 % | -7.0 % | 3.8 % | -3.7 % | -4.0 % | 5.5 % | ||
| 9 | ||||||||||||||
| 10 | €34,000 | €35,000 | €37,000 | €37,000 | €38,000 | €40,000 | €40,000 | €36,000 | €39,000 | €41,000 | €46,000 | €45,000 | ||
| 11 | €34,800 | €35,200 | €39,100 | €36,400 | €39,900 | €41,800 | €40,600 | €37,500 | €38,900 | €43,200 | €48,100 | €46,700 | ||
| 12 | €800 | €200 | €2,100 | €-600 | €1,900 | €1,800 | €600 | €1,500 | €-100 | €2,200 | €2,100 | €1,700 | ||
| 13 | 2.4 % | 0.6 % | 5.7 % | -1.6 % | 5.0 % | 4.5 % | 1.5 % | 4.2 % | -0.3 % | 5.4 % | 4.6 % | 3.8 % | ||
| 14 | ||||||||||||||
| 15 | €6,000 | €7,000 | €8,000 | €8,000 | €9,000 | €10,000 | €10,000 | €8,000 | €9,000 | €11,000 | €14,000 | €13,000 | ||
| 16 | €3,600 | €7,900 | €5,100 | €5,400 | €8,700 | €5,500 | €11,800 | €3,400 | €10,900 | €6,900 | €9,500 | €14,500 | ||
| 17 | €-2,400 | €900 | €-2,900 | €-2,600 | €-300 | €-4,500 | €1,800 | €-4,600 | €1,900 | €-4,100 | €-4,500 | €1,500 | ||
| 18 | €-2,400 | €-1,500 | €-4,400 | €-7,000 | €-7,300 | €-11,800 | €-10,000 | €-14,600 | €-12,700 | €-16,800 | €-21,300 | €-19,800 | ||
The blue cells are yours to fill in. Every other cell is a formula and works itself out.
How to use it
- 1
Freeze the plan before the year starts
The plan rows are written once. The moment you “correct” a plan figure to match the actual, the file stops being able to tell you anything.
- 2
Fill the actuals from one source only
Your accounting export, or your bank, or your shop — but the same one every month. Mixing sources produces variances that are really just definitions.
- 3
Look at the result variance first
Revenue 5% under plan with costs 6% under plan is a good month, not a bad one. Only the result row nets the two against each other.
- 4
Act on the cumulative row
Three months of −3% is a rounding error. Nine months of −3% is a quarter of your annual result, and by then only a big move fixes it.
A worked example
Nine small misses that add up to one big one
- April — revenue variance
- €-3,200
- April — cost variance
- €-600
- April — result variance
- €-2,600
- Cumulative variance after April
- €-6,300
- Cumulative variance after December
- €-13,600
No single month looks alarming — the worst is €2,600 off a €45,000 plan. But the misses point the same way all year, and the cumulative row ends at −€13,600: most of a hire, gone, without one month ever raising a flag.
The mistakes that break it
Rewriting the plan mid-year
A “re-forecast” that replaces the original plan destroys the only baseline you had. Keep the plan, and add a forecast column beside it if you need one.
Comparing percentages on small numbers
A cost line planned at €300 and spent at €600 is +100% and completely irrelevant. Sort by euros, then read the percentage.
Only filling it in at year end
A variance you read in December is a post-mortem. The point of the sheet is to make a €2,600 month visible while there are still ten months to react in.
Where the template stops
It looks backwards
A variance tells you what already happened. It cannot tell you what the next six months look like if the trend continues — that is a forecast, not a comparison.
Profit & loss planFilling in the actuals is the whole job
Twelve months × two categories is the small version. A real cost breakdown is forty rows a month, exported and pasted by hand.
It is only as current as your last evening with it
Every number in here is typed in. The month you skip is the month the sheet quietly stops describing your business — and it never says so.
What comes after the spreadsheet
Cash vs profitA plan is only worth the tracking behind it. Foreqast puts plan and actuals in one view and keeps the variance current.Calculators