Budget V Actual Chart
Budget V Actual Chart
Beautiful Budget vs. Actual chart to make your boss love you
(chandoo.org)
Beautiful Budget vs. Actual chart to make your boss love you
Posted: 16 May 2018 03:45 AM PDT
Call them by any name – Budget vs. Actual, Target vs. Actual, Goal vs. Progress, KPIs, Performance charts, but they
are the bread and butter of business charting. So how about a drop dead gorgeous and insightful chart for your next
meeting with the folks upstairs? Something like this:
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Step 1: Getting the data
Set up your data. Let’s say you have budgets and actual values for a bunch of categories (products, months, departments
etc.) in this format. Calculate variance and variance % using simple formulas as shown below.
Simply select your category, budget and actual columns and insert a column chart (clustered). You will get this.
It feels wrong, but trust me on this one. Add budget and actual values to the chart again. We now end up with a cluster of
4 columns per category, as shown below.
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Step 4: Change the newly added columns to lines
Right click on either of the newly added columns, choose “Change series chart type” and convert both of them to lines.
This step looks different in older versions of Excel, where you have to do it for each column. In Excel 2013 or above, you
will go to “Combination chart” screen and you can adjust the series types for all series from there.
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Step 5: Add up / down bars to these lines
Select either of the lines and use the + icon to insert up/down bars. In earlier versions of Excel, you need to use either
Insert ribbon or menu to do the same.
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Step 6: Format up down bars and columns
Quickly adjust the colors of each bar (don’t touch the lines yet) as you see fit.
Feel free to adjust / experiment with various gap width combinations to see which works best for your eyes.
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Step 8: Make the lines invisible
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If you are muggle, simply set the outline color to no line and you are gold. We get this:
Step 9: Add a title to your chart and remove unnecessary legend items
Double click on the chart title and type something meaningful. Alternatively, you can also link it to a cell value. To do that,
select the title, press = and point to a cell that has the title you want to use.
To remove legend entries, click on the chart legend, now click again on the series 3, hit DEL key. Repeat the process for
series 4.
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Step 10: Add data labels to both lines
Select the lines one at a time (remember, the lines are invisible, so just click where they are supposed to be or use the
format box to select them). Now use the + button to add data labels. In older versions of Excel, you need to use either
ribbon or menus to add labels. At this stage, your chart should look like this:
This is the fun part. Start by setting up rules for what symbol+value you want to show. For example, you may want to
show,
Create a range where your symbol % mapping will go and fill up the symbols using Insert > Symbol option. Select Segoe
UI Emoji font to insert cool emojis.
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Your mapping table should look like this:
Note the first value. It means we will display thumbs down for all values between -5% and -100%.
Now, let’s calculate the labels. There are two sets of labels. Positive and Negative. This gives you finer control on
formatting them. Our raw data area now looks like this:
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Formulas for labels:
Symbol: =VLOOKUP(var%, mapping-table, 2) We are using the approximate lookup technique to get relevant
symbol.
Replace the words var%, mapping-table, Symbol with actual cell references in your workbook.
Now that we have gorgeous labels, let’s replace the old ones with these.
Select first line (budget)’s labels and press CTRL+1 to go to format options.
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Click on “Value from cells” option and point to Var 1 column.
We get this.
We are almost there. Click on the labels and choose position as “Above”.
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Download FREE Budget vs. Actual Chart Template
Click here to download the chart template. Just type in your data and see the chart. If you want to learn how to make
the chart, there are instructions in the workbook too. Scroll down to see them. Have a play and use it in your work to be a
hero in front of your boss.
If you liked that chart, check out these additional resources for more inspiration and wow factor.
For simple data, I use either databars or thermometer charts. For something fancy, I use technique described in this
post. It never ceases to amaze my audience.
What about you? What charts do you use to make budget vs. actual charts? Please share your thoughts in comments.
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If you face difficulty making budget vs actual chart in Excel, check:
You have Emoji font installed. Windows should have added this by default long ago. The font name is Segoe UI
Emoji.
Labels are set to Segoe UI Emoji font. In some versions of Excel, emojis are available only on few fonts. If you
see funny symbols or boxes with ? inside them, select labels and set the font to Segoe UI Emoji.
Any other problem… post a comment so one of our readers or I can help you.
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