Use Copilot Variance Analysis

Copilot Variance Analysis alerts budget owners and finance leaders when actual spending exceeds the budget. Copilot notifications keep budget owners in the loop, whether it’s a timely update or an on-demand review. You can drill into report insights to see detailed breakdowns and visualizations that show exactly how your budget is doing.

Example of using Variance Analysis

You interact with Copilot using suggested prompts, which are predefined queries. You can use the available suggested prompts in any order when exploring budget variances.

The following is an example of a variance analysis exploration. The suggested prompt names and the data you actually see depend on your company's environment and your data access.

1. On any page in Sage Intacct, select the Copilot icon in the top title bar.

   The Copilot panel opens on the right side of your browser window on top of the current Intacct page.

   

2. Let's say today is October 29, and you select Show budget variance analysis YTD. If today was November 1, you might select Show budget variance analysis YTD as of last month instead.

   You'll then be asked to apply a filter if your company meets either of the following conditions:

   • Your company has multi-base currencies enabled. You can select an entity or an entity group in which all entities share the same base currency.

   • Your company has more than 10 entities. You can select an entity or an entity group that contains 10 or fewer entities.

   

   The Copilot chat pane displays the YTD budget variance analysis insight card. The insight shows a chart visualization and budget vs. actual details for the Revenue, Cost of revenue, Operating expenses, and Net operating income account groups.

3. Select Describe the variance.

   Copilot generates a description of the variance based on the analysis of account groups and GL accounts.

   

4. You see that the Expenditure 1 GL account is the main contributor to over-budget expenses. You scroll up to the visualization and select the Operating expenses value in the YTD Actuals column to investigate further.

   Copilot opens the Dimension balances report filtered to show the GL accounts within the Operating expenses account group. From here, you can drill down further to the General Ledger report to see specific transactions contributing to the variance. Or you can drill down into the Budget report to view the budget breakdown.

   

5. You now want to see all financial details, so you select View full financial report in Copilot.

   Copilot opens the financial report specified in the Variance Analysis configuration. From here, you can drill down to investigate further as desired.

   

Understand your variance analysis data

When reviewing variance analysis data, you need to consider the following concepts: the specific timeframe being analyzed, the timing of insight generation, and the scope of your data access.

Timeframe and presentation variations

Copilot shows variance analysis data in the following contexts:

• Year to date (YTD): This refers to the period from the beginning of the calendar year (January 1) to the current date. If your company's fiscal year starts on January 1, you'll see suggested prompts to run the variance analysis for YTD.
• Fiscal year to date (FYTD): This refers to the period from the beginning of your company's fiscal year to the current date. If your company's fiscal year does not start on January 1, you'll see suggested prompts to run the variance analysis for FYTD.
• Budget data presentation differences:
  • Financial reports: Present budget data that's prorated according to the number of days in the month being evaluated.
  • Copilot insights and the Dimension Balances report: Present the budget amount for the full budget period—it is not prorated.

When insights are generated

An insight is a piece of information, suggestion, notification, or report that Copilot believes may be valuable to a user. Copilot generates insights as follows:

• For example, your environment is configured to send notifications weekly and today is Thursday, October 17. You receive an insight notification and then view the related insight in Copilot. The insight card's timestamp shows that the insight was created after 12:00 AM on Monday, October 14.

  Pre-generated insights—Copilot generates these insights using an overnight process that runs at the configured frequency, which can be daily, weekly, or monthly. The process starts at midnight relative to your company's configured timezone. When an insight is generated, Copilot notifies the applicable users that an insight exists through a notification badge in Sage Intacct and optionally through an email.

• Real-time insights—Copilot generates these insights when you select an applicable suggested prompt. For example, if you select Run prior period variance analysis, Copilot generates that insight when you select the prompt. The run As of date can vary, depending on whether the General Ledger books are open or closed.

Data access scope

The data you see is based on your business unit or unrestricted user assignment and also by whether you're accessing Copilot from an entity or the top level:

• If you're a budget manager, you'll see data for one or more business units to which you're assigned as manager. For example, you're assigned as the manager of Department A. You'll see variance analysis data for Department A.
• If you're assigned as an unrestricted user, you'll see data for the entire organization.

Variance analysis insights

Note the following about variance analysis insights:

• Business unit managers will see data applicable to each assigned department, location, or entity record. If a manager is assigned to more than one dimension record, a Show next prompt appears in each insight card. Use the Show next prompt to display the insight card for each applicable dimension.
• Unrestricted users will see data for the entire organization.
• Insight data can also be relative to whether you're accessing Copilot from the top level or the entity level.
• If your company has multiple base currencies enabled, insights are generated for a single entity or an entity group with locations that share the same base currency.

The following table describes the different variance analysis insights.

Insight title	Example	Description	How to display it
<YTD or FYTD> budget variance analysis		Shows current YTD or current FYTD actual and budget amounts for the following configured account groups:  Revenue Cost of revenue Operating expenses Net operating income	Do one of the following: To view a real-time report, select Show budget variance analysis YTD from a new chat. To view a pre-generated report, select the View more link in the YTD Budget Variance Analysis Report insight notification.
<YTD or FYTD> budget variance analysis as of last month		Shows the current YTD or FYTD actual and budget amounts for the following configured account groups as of the last month:  Revenue Cost of revenue Operating expenses Net operating income These figures are based on whether your General Ledger books are open or closed. If your books are open for the last month, it shows the current YTD or FYTD values as of today's date. If your books are closed for the last month, it shows the current YTD or FYTD values as of the end of the last month.	Select Show budget variance analysis as of last month from a new chat.
Prior period variance analysis		Shows current YTD or FYTD actuals compared to prior YTD or FYTD actuals for the following configured account groups:  Revenue Cost of revenue Operating expenses Net operating income	Do one of the following: To view a real-time report, select Run prior period variance analysis from the <YTD or FYTD> budget variance analysis insight card. To view a pre-generated report, select the View more link in the YTD Budget Variance Analysis Report insight notification.
Prior period variance analysis as of last month		Shows current year or fiscal year through prior month actuals compared to prior year or fiscal year through prior month actuals for the following configured account groups:  Revenue Cost of revenue Operating expenses Net operating income	Select Run prior period variance analysis from the <YTD or FYTD> budget variance analysis as of last month insight card
<Departments or Locations> have exceeded budget		If the scheduled notification process finds that the Operating expenses account group total exceeds the budget total, Copilot generates this insight. Business unit managers will see all account group details for the applicable departments or locations. Unrestricted users will see only the Operating expense totals for each applicable department or location.	If this insight notification was generated, select the View more link from the insight notification
		Displays an AI-generated description of the variance analysis based on the evaluation of the account groups and associated GL accounts.	Select Describe the variance from an insight card.
Financial report		Displays the financial report specified in the Copilot variance analysis configuration. Use this report to investigate details on a reported variance. Note the following expected behavior when launching a financial report from Copilot: If the financial report is set up with prompts, you'll need to enter the prompts before viewing the report. If you choose to analyze by department and also by location or entity, Copilot will launch the location or entity financial report by default for unrestricted users (users who have access to financial information for the entire organization).	Select View full financial report from an insight card.
Dimension balances report		From an insight card, you can drill into the Dimension balances report for each applicable account group. The Dimension balances report is filtered to match the selected value. For example, you're showing the YTD budget variance analysis for Department A. If you select the Actual value next to the Revenue account group, the Dimension balances report is filtered to show only GL accounts within the Revenue account group hierarchy that are tagged to Department A. From the Dimension balances report, you can then drill into the General Ledger report or Budget report for the applicable values.	Select an actual value in an insight card.