Actuals vs Forecast Reports

As your business grows, it’s vital to measure how you're performing compared to your original plans. Brixx makes this easy by letting you compare actual financial results against your forecasted projections across your key financial reports — Cash Flow, Profit & Loss, and Balance Sheet.

These powerful variance reports help you understand what’s going to plan, what isn’t, and where you need to make adjustments.

Why Compare Actuals to Forecast?

Comparing your actual results with your forecast enables proactive decision-making. It helps you:

  • Identify performance gaps early

  • Understand what’s driving success or underperformance

  • Justify decisions with real data

  • Communicate clearly with stakeholders like your team, board, or investors

With Brixx, these reports are built right into your plan — no spreadsheet wrangling required.

 

See Performance at a Detailed Level

Your actual data is aligned with the components of your forecast, so you can see exactly which activities are on track and which are not. As you enter new monthly data, you can:

  • Drill into individual report lines

  • See which components are driving changes

  • Identify trends across months, quarters, or the whole year

  • Spot the biggest contributors to variances

This level of insight helps guide strategic decisions and reveals where your efforts are having the most (or least) impact.

Understanding Variance Reports

Variance reports mirror your standard forecast reports, with actuals displayed alongside forecast values. You can choose whether this comparison appears as:

  • Side-by-side columns, or

  • Duplicate rows

This structure applies consistently across sections, groups, and accounts, right down to the component level of your plan. Each comparison shows:

  • The actual value

  • The forecasted value

  • The percentage variance

You can easily switch between monthly, quarterly, or yearly views to see performance across different time periods.

How Percentage Variance is Calculated

The % variance is calculated using this formula:

(Actual - Forecast) / Forecast x 100

It’s clearly marked with:

  • A + or - sign to indicate direction

  • Color indicators for performance:

    • Green = a positive change (e.g. higher revenue, lower costs)

    • Red = a negative change (e.g. lower revenue, higher costs)

These visual cues help you instantly spot areas that need attention.


How do I use it?

You enter your data on the new actuals tab which you can find inside your plan in the top menu. The variance reports are in the normal reporting area.

 

Use these reports regularly to refine your strategy, improve forecasting accuracy, and demonstrate accountability to stakeholders. It’s a key step in building a plan that evolves with your business.