Free finance template
Monthly budget against actual
Budget, actual and the variance in money and percent per line, which lines are over, and the biggest overrun.
It opens with this template loaded and runs in your browser. You don't need an account to use it; a free account saves your work and exports it.
The job it does
Every month-end review of a store, a team or a project budget. It comes with its own checks, so after you change it you can see at a glance that it still does the job.
How to use it with your own data
Paste your budget and actual columns (or import a CSV as a sheet) and keep the variance formulas.
What's inside
This is the template exactly as the Finance Lab opens it, read-only. Open it to run it, change it and export it.
- 1 sheet
- 28 formulas
- Exports to Excel, CSV and PDF
Variance = actual − budget. For sales, positive is good news; for costs it is bad news, so the status column treats them differently. COUNTIF counts the lines over budget and XLOOKUP names the biggest overrun.
- No formula errors anywhere
- C11 is a formula, not a typed number
- D11 is a formula, not a typed number
- B12 is a formula, not a typed number
| Number | Value |
|---|---|
| Actual profit | $10,210 |
| Profit variance | $1,310 |
| Lines over budget | 2 |
- Actual sales: $192,200 (from 150000 to 220000)
- Actual staff cost: $23,600 (from 18000 to 30000)
| Row | A | B | C | D | E | F |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Riverside store: June budget against actual | |||||
| 2 | Line | Budget | Actual | Variance | Variance % | Status |
| 3 | Sales | $184,000 | $192,200 | $8,200 (formula =C3-B3) | 4.5% (formula =IF(B3=0,0,D3/B3)) | on track (formula =IF(D3>=0,"on track","below")) |
| 4 | Cost of goods | $132,000 | $137,800 | $5,800 (formula =C4-B4) | 4.4% (formula =IF(B4=0,0,D4/B4)) | watch (formula =IF(D4<=0,"on track",IF(E4>0.05,"over budget","watch"))) |
| 5 | Staff | $23,000 | $23,600 | $600 (formula =C5-B5) | 2.6% (formula =IF(B5=0,0,D5/B5)) | watch (formula =IF(D5<=0,"on track",IF(E5>0.05,"over budget","watch"))) |
| 6 | Rent | $8,400 | $8,400 | $0 (formula =C6-B6) | 0% (formula =IF(B6=0,0,D6/B6)) | on track (formula =IF(D6<=0,"on track",IF(E6>0.05,"over budget","watch"))) |
| 7 | Utilities | $3,200 | $3,820 | $620 (formula =C7-B7) | 19.4% (formula =IF(B7=0,0,D7/B7)) | over budget (formula =IF(D7<=0,"on track",IF(E7>0.05,"over budget","watch"))) |
| 8 | Marketing | $2,400 | $1,720 | -$680 (formula =C8-B8) | -28.3% (formula =IF(B8=0,0,D8/B8)) | on track (formula =IF(D8<=0,"on track",IF(E8>0.05,"over budget","watch"))) |
| 9 | Delivery riders | $6,100 | $6,650 | $550 (formula =C9-B9) | 9% (formula =IF(B9=0,0,D9/B9)) | over budget (formula =IF(D9<=0,"on track",IF(E9>0.05,"over budget","watch"))) |
| 11 | Profit | $8,900 (formula =B3-SUM(B4:B9)) | $10,210 (formula =C3-SUM(C4:C9)) | $1,310 (formula =C11-B11) | 14.7% (formula =IF(B11=0,0,D11/B11)) | |
| 12 | Lines over budget | 2 (formula =COUNTIF(F3:F9,"over budget")) | ||||
| 13 | Biggest cost overrun | $5,800 (formula =MAX(D4:D9)) | Cost of goods (formula =XLOOKUP(B13,D4:D9,A4:A9,"none")) |
The lesson behind it
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