Variance = Actual − Budget; Variance % = (Actual − Budget) ÷ Budget
Budget vs. actual is the comparison between what a company planned to spend or earn in a period and what was actually booked, line by line, to measure the variance in amount and percentage and explain its cause.
How it is calculated
Variance = Actual − Budget. Variance % = (Actual − Budget) ÷ Budget. For expenses, a positive variance is unfavourable; for revenue, favourable. It is calculated by month and year to date.
Example with numbers
Marketing budget for the quarter: 90,000. Actual: 104,000. Variance: +14,000 (+15.6%). Drilling into the detail, 12,000 comes from a campaign moved from April to March: a timing difference, not an overspend.
How Fibady does it
The budget is loaded by area and by group account, and every month it is compared with the actuals arriving from each entity's ERP. Each variance opens down to the entry that explains it, and the AI agent summarises the causes in plain language.