The Profit and Loss Statement (Actual vs Budget) does not display percentages for expense accounts. Here is an illustration from a test company:
For the test, not every account has a budget and not every account with a budget has actuals. The budgeted amounts for both income and expenses display correctly regardless. It is only the percentages for expense accounts that are missing.
Percentage will show only if amounts are both positive or both negative.
How did you enter expense amounts on budget? I think currently Manager requires expense amounts to be entered as negative.
I had entered expenses as positive numbers. If you convert all expenses to negative, the percentages display properly:
i’ve removed this topic from Bugs category and renamed it. I will update the relevant Guide to stress this point.
It appears that the percentages are working with actuals being a percentage of the budgets rather then the norm practise where budgets are a percentage of actuals.
Taking Income account 4400 - 25.00 the actual is 100% favourable (over earned)
Taking Expense account 6600 - 31.57 the actual is 97% favourable (under spent)
Taking Expense account 6900 - 2111.20 the actual is (76%) unfavourable (over spent)
Taking Expense account 8100 - “-” the actual is 100% favourable (under spent)
I think the usage must vary by region and/or company. My experience matches what the program is doing in some cases, i. e., if your actuals are half the budget, they are described as being 50% of budget. This is customary when a budget for a quarter or year is established and weekly or monthly “progress” reports are made. The idea is that as the time period for which the budget was drawn up goes on, you approach 100% of budget (or 95% if you’re under or 110% if over). This is often presented with a percentage figure for how much of the time span has elapsed. Thus, when 75% of the way through the year, one would expect to be close to 75% of the budget.
When a budget is established for one or more shorter periods, and especially when the actual and budget periods match, the difference is often described as a variance, corresponding to your usage. If you are under budget on expenses, you have a positive variance. If over budget on income, also a positive variance.
You also have more complex descriptions as you get into earned value management systems. But we’re nowhere close to that.
@tut - I have to confess that your above response is one of the most confusing posts I have read on this forum:
First you state - “My experience matches what the program is doing in some cases”.
Then what is the programme not doing to match your other experiences in the other cases - surely the programme needs to present itself consistently across all cases.
Then you state “if your actuals are half the budget, they are described as being 50% of budget.”
Which is true, but if you extrapolate that further then when your actuals are double the budget, they are described as 200% of budget - correct ?
Which maybe valid from an income perspective, however, from an expenditure point of view if your actuals are double the budget then that is not a 200% but is a (100%) result. A budget overspend can never be shown as positive outcome.
This conclusion is confirmed by your own (conflicting) posturing when you state “If you are under budget on expenses, you have a positive variance” which by logical deduction implies that if you are over budget on expenses you have a negative variance.
However, when looking at account 6900 - Actual 2111.20 v’s Budget 1200.00 with an over budget spend of 911.20 - which is a negative variance to the budget yet it is showing a positive to budget of 176%, whereas it should be shown as a negative (76%).
By your original contention - my experience - you held that Manger was doing the right processing but by your argument - budget variance - that contention can’t be sustained as they are opposites - positive percentages for negative variances- illogical.
You interpreted my comment backwards. What I meant to convey is that, in some cases, my experience matches what the program is doing. In other cases within my experience, conventions do not match what the program is doing. I guess my comment could have been read to mean that the program sometimes did things that match my experience. My overall point was that different people present budget analysis different ways, all valid despite their different perspectives.
Yes, that’s what I meant for that particular example.
My comment in this case was addressed to the variance-type analysis. The report uses the other, percentage type analysis. So I wouldn’t expect it to match usage for a variance analysis.
I agree. As I said above, my entire point was that there are many ways to present and describe actual vs. budget analyses. In my opinion, the most important factor is that the approach being used be communicated thoroughly and followed rigorously to avoid exactly the kind of confusion this exchange has degenerated into.
Meanwhile, whatever one might think of the method, Manager applies its approach consistently as long as income is entered positively and expenses negatively.
