Written by Nils R. | Aug 8, 2020 7:00:00 AM
What is
a
Profit & Loss Variance Report with Expandable YTD columns
? Profit & Loss Variance Reports are considered essential month-end reports and are often used by executives and the finance team to analyze the components that drive profitability. Key functionality in this type of report automatically provides a presentation-quality layout with account-level detail and traffic lights that highlight important variances. Each of the year-to-date columns can be expanded to see each individual month from the beginning of the year until the current period. You will find an example of this type of report below.
Purpose of
Profit & Loss Variance Reports Companies and organizations use Profit & Loss Variance Reports to analyze revenues, expenses and profitability, and to easily detect variances versus the same period last year and when compared to the budget. When used as part of good business practices in a Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) Department, a company can improve its ability to interpret monthly financial results, as well as, reduce the chance that significant revenue or expense-related performance issues goes undetected.
Profit & Loss Variance Report
Example Here is an example of modern Profit & Loss Variance Report with expandable YTD columns and traffic lights to highlight important variances. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="1681"]
Profit & Loss Variance Report with Expandable YTD Columns Example[/caption] You can find hundreds of additional examples
here.
Who Uses This Type of
Report
? The typical users of this type of report are: Board Members, Executives and Department Managers.
Other
Report
s Often Used in Conjunction with
Profit & Loss Variance Reports Progressive Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) Departments sometimes use several different Profit & Loss Variance Reports, along with balance sheets, cash flow reports 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, Acumatica, Netsuite and others. In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the planning 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) Cloud Solutions and More Examples
