Enter budgeted and actual figures for each line item to instantly see variance amount, variance percentage, and which items exceed your materiality threshold.
| Line item | Type | Budget | Actual |
|---|
| Line item | Budget | Actual | Variance | Variance % | Status |
|---|
How to use variance investigator pro
- Add a row for each budget line item you want to review.
- Mark each line as Cost or Revenue, this determines whether an over-budget actual is favorable or unfavorable.
- Enter the budgeted and actual figures for each line.
- Set your materiality threshold, the percentage variance above which an item gets flagged for review.
- Click Analyze Variances to see every line's variance, flagged automatically if it exceeds your threshold.
Why materiality thresholds make variance review faster
Every budget has small variances, timing differences, rounding, minor price changes, that aren't worth anyone's investigation time. Setting a materiality threshold separates that noise from the handful of line items where something operationally significant happened, letting a reviewer spend their limited time where it actually matters instead of reading every number with equal attention.
Example
A marketing budget of 50,000 with actual spend of 62,000 is a 24% unfavorable variance, well above a 10% threshold and worth investigating. A rent budget of 20,000 with actual of 20,400 is only a 2% variance, immaterial and safe to skip past.
Frequently asked questions
- What counts as a favorable vs unfavorable variance?
- For revenue, actual above budget is favorable; for costs, actual below budget is favorable.
- What materiality threshold should I use?
- Often 5-10% of budget, adjusted to your organization's size and policy.
- Why flag variances instead of just showing every number?
- Flagging focuses review time on the variances most likely to represent a real issue.
- Does this tool store or send my budget figures anywhere?
- No, all calculations happen locally in your browser.
Bookmark this page and use it every month-end close, it turns a flat budget-vs-actual report into a prioritized review list in seconds.
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