Enhanced interface

Budget-to-actual reports

You can use the Financial Report Writer to track how you are performing against budget. Are you reaching your goals for revenue? Are expenses above or below what you expected?

After you create this report, you can run it from either the Financial Report list in the General Ledger or from the Reports center.

About the report

Although there are many ways to set up a budget to actual report, the following report includes many of the typical elements.

A breakdown of revenue and expenses.
Columns for actual, budget, and the actual to budget difference (or variance).

The report shows net income and expenses for the quarter ending December 31st, with actual to budget differences normailzed.

In your company, the way that you organize revenue and expenses (including terminology) depends on your account groups. See the prerequisites for best practice information.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite Description

Prerequisite	Description
Account group (such as "Net income") that contains account groups for revenue and expenses	The best practice is to organize your account groups so that revenue and expenses roll up to a parent account group whose normal balance is either credit or debit. Blending accounts with different normal balances is not a best practice. The system takes the sign from the immediate parent group. For example, if there are differences between the normal balances of group of account groups and the underlying account group, the system changes the sign while normalizing the budget difference. `Net Income (Normal balance = CR)` `Revenue (Normal balance = CR) ... Expenses (Normal balance = DB) ...` Although the Expenses account group is set up with a normal balance of debit (DB), including it in a parent account group with a credit balance enables a normalized budget difference or normalized budget variance column to show a decrease in expenses as a positive number and an increase in expenses as a negative number.
A budget	At least one budget set up for your company is required. In the preceding sample report, the 3rd column displays amounts from a budget.

Account group (such as "Net income") that contains account groups for revenue and expenses

The best practice is to organize your account groups so that revenue and expenses roll up to a parent account group whose normal balance is either credit or debit.

Blending accounts with different normal balances is not a best practice. The system takes the sign from the immediate parent group.

For example, if there are differences between the normal balances of group of account groups and the underlying account group, the system changes the sign while normalizing the budget difference.

Net Income (Normal balance = CR)

          Revenue (Normal balance = CR)
               ...
          Expenses (Normal balance = DB)
               ...

Although the Expenses account group is set up with a normal balance of debit (DB), including it in a parent account group with a credit balance enables a normalized budget difference or normalized budget variance column to show a decrease in expenses as a positive number and an increase in expenses as a negative number.

A budget

At least one budget set up for your company is required. In the preceding sample report, the 3rd column displays amounts from a budget.

Create the report

Go to General Ledger > All > Core and select Add (circle) next to Financial reports.
Provide a name and report structure for the report.
On the Rows tab, select the parent account group that contains your revenue and expense account groups. In the preceding sample, this is the "Net Income" account group.
Define the columns for your report.
The Columns tab is where you'll add any budget columns.
You can add columns that:
- Display budget data for a reporting period: For each budget column, set the column type to "Budget" and select the Budget ID and reporting period.
- Display budget difference or variance: Automatically calculate the difference or variance between your budgeted amount for a period and the actual amount without creating a computation. You can set the column type to one of the normalized budget options, such as Budget difference (normalized).

You aren't required to include actual columns on your report to display these budget calculations.

Run the report

Do one of the following:

Go to the Financial Report Writer: (Go to General Ledger > All > Financial reporting > Financial reports.

Go to the Reports center: (Go to Reports > All > Reports center. )

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

How can I show expenses as a positive number?

Companies typically want to display expense differences or variances such that:

A decrease in expenses is a positive number
An increase in expenses is a negative number

If your report is showing the wrong sign for expense differences or variances, this is typically because the report directly includes an expense account group that has a Normal balance of Debit.

If you want to show only expenses on the report, you can create a parent account group, whose normal balance is credit, and include only your Expenses account group as a member.

You can assign the parent account group an arbitrary name, such as Expenses_parent, and then hide the associated header and total rows using the Format tab of the Financial Report Writer.

Expenses_Parent (Normal balance = CR)
Expenses (Normal balance = DB)
...
                                                                        

If your report is showing the wrong sign for expense differences or variances:

On the Rows tab of the financial report, verify that the account group that you selected has a normal balance of credit.
On the Columns tab of the financial report, verify that the budget difference or variance column is set to "normalized."
For the Column type, choose either:
- Budget variance (normalized)
- Budget difference (normalized)
For reports that show expenses only: On the Format tab of the financial report, hide the heading and total rows for the Expenses_parent account group.