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Budget vs Actual Template

The Budget vs Actual Template provides a clear side-by-side view of your Income Statement accounts, showing actual and budgeted amounts, the amount over budget and actuals as a percentage of budget.

See the budget vs actual template in action.

Utilizing the Budget vs Actual Template

  1. Select Standard Reports > Budget vs Actual
  2. View the new sheet that has been created called Budget vs Actual
  3. Fill in all required parameters (asterisks by the names). Only enter values in the yellow highlighted cells. The greyed out parameters will auto-fill.
  4. Select the now activated button in the ribbon under Actions of Load Accounts. Finsyte will go to NetSuite to return the appropriate list of GL Account numbers and balances based on the identified parameter inputs.

The following columns are returned:

Column NameFunction
Actual AmountReturns the actual account balance for the row's GL account or subtotal.
Budget AmountReturns the budget account balance for the row's GL account or subtotal.
Amount Over BudgetReturns the Actual Amount minus the Budget Amount, in currency.
% of BudgetReturns the percentage of Actual Amount over Budget Amount, or n/m when there's no budget but there is an actual amount.

Remarks

  • Review the GL Accounts list to understand what accounts will be available for the income statement. Every account that falls under the system generated account of FSN_L0_INC will be returned. The Parent column in this table also helps to determine the tree structure seen in the template.
  • Review the Subsidiary column in the GL Accounts list to understand which accounts utilize which subsidiaries. The SubsidiariesHasAccess column generated by Finsyte can also be insightful for this.
  • For a consolidated report, or several subsidiaries side by side, select the top-level (Consolidated) subsidiary before you select Load Accounts so the sheet brings in every account. An account a subsidiary can't use returns 0 and can be ignored.
  • Once you've customized the template, don't select Load Accounts again. It rebuilds the account list in the template's own columns only, which undoes your layout.
  • Aggregate functions are utilized on the totals for groups in the financial statement to ensure proper totaling.
  • The accounts under Income and Other Income have reversed signs for totaling purposes.

Example Budget vs Actual Report

  1. Select Standard Reports > Budget vs Actual to get the initial template
  2. Fill in the parameters (required with *) at the top of the sheet and select Load Accounts to get full account list with account balances and totals.
  3. Adjust parameters as needed. The balances update on their own.
  4. The Switch Signs operation has already been applied to corresponding account sections.

Budget vs Actual Report Example