Written by Solver | Jun 25, 2020 7:00:00 AM
What is
a
Budget Accuracy Report
? Budget Accuracy reports are considered essential planning tools and are used by budget managers to help their department managers improve the accuracy of their budgets. A key functionality seen in this type of report may provide two years of historical actual-to-budget variances, in addition to, variances in the current year. This gives users a total of three years of data to see how well (or not) they have been able to predict revenues and expenses for their department. You will find an example of this type of report below.
Purpose of
Budget Accuracy Reports Companies and organizations use Budget Accuracy Reports to detect repetitive misses in departmental budgets so that users can improve their planning accuracy in future years. In other words, the greater the precision in planning that a company is able to achieve, the more successful it is likely to be. When used as part of good business practices in a Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) Department, a company can improve its hiring plans, capital investments and liquidity, as well as, mitigate the risk that budgets repeatedly miss their targets, which can cause managers to lose faith in the value of the budget process.
Budget Accuracy Report
Example Here is an example of a Budget Accuracy Report with two years of variance history plus the variance for current year.
You can find hundreds of additional examples
here.
Who Uses This Type of
Report
? The typical users of this type of report are: Budget Managers and Department Heads.
Other
Report
s Often Used in Conjunction with
Budget Accuracy Reports Progressive Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) Departments sometimes use several different Budget Accuracy Reports, along with exception reports, drill down features and other management and control tools.
Where Does the Data for Analysis Originate From? The Actual (historical transactions) data typically comes from enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage Intacct, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, SAP Business One, SAP ByDesign, Netsuite and others. In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the data most often originates from in-house Excel spreadsheet models or from professional corporate performance management (CPM/EPM) solutions.
What Tools are Typically used for Reporting, Planning and Dashboards? Examples of business software used with the data and ERPs mentioned above are:
- Native ERP report writers and query tools
- Spreadsheets (for example Microsoft Excel)
- Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tools (for example Solver)
- Dashboards (for example Microsoft Power BI and Tableau)
Corporate Performance Management (CPM) Technology Solutions and More Examples
