Budget versus actual is one of those reports that follows you around if you're in Controlling, FP&A or creating any type of management report for your company.

I built versions of it for years. The numbers were never the difficult part. Putting it together so it actually communicated something was the tricky bit. Management always wants to see things from different angles, so it had to work by month and by region.

How could I fit it all on one page? Actuals, plan, previous year, variances, all of it.

Well, here's one way to do that. Take a look at the chart below.

The bars up top compare actuals to plan, and underneath, thin strips show the variance (change to plan and change to last year), each sitting right under its category, lined up perfectly.

There's also a dropdown above it where you can pick a month and every number updates on its own.

The thing is Excel doesn't have a chart type that creates this. It needs more than one chart, in fact. The trick is to lay each variance directly on top of the main chart and stretch it until the columns line up, then move it down into place.

Two settings do the rest. Remove the fill on the variance chart so it's transparent, and hide its axis labels so the category names only appear once.

I walked through the whole build - dropdown, lookups, charts and all here:

📊 Excel Dashboard to Track Budget and Actuals with Variances ​

🤓 Geeky News

📄 Word can now link straight to a spot in a document

No more "see the section halfway down page 47." Word now lets you create shareable links to a location on a page.

Select some text, right-click, Copy Link to Location, and whoever opens it lands exactly there instead of scrolling around guessing.

Rolling out now on Windows and Mac. Finally, something to end the "did you see the part about..." back-and-forth.

✈️ Copilot can now build your slides on iPad

​Copilot co-creation just landed in PowerPoint for iPad. Turn notes, an outline, or even photos into a draft deck, or ask it to fix formatting and rewrite text, all from your iPad.

No worries if you hate typing on the mobile keyboard - voice instructions are supported. Good news for the impatient: you can keep swiping through other apps while it works and come back to review.

Handy if your best ideas hit you nowhere near a laptop.

📁 Microsoft is finally fixing File Explorer

​File Explorer is getting a long-promised overhaul.

It promises fewer freezes and faster launches. No longer freezing after a file rename? Sign me up.

Plus, they're redesigning the right-click menu and letting you customize what's in it.

It's rolling out to Windows Insiders first, so the rest of us will have to wait our turn.

👏 A different job next year

Dave is a data manager, and he's using Business Charts in Excel to build an entire reporting system. Here's what he told us:

Dave Wrona Data Manager

I am building an entire supplemental data management and reporting system for work, and I'm using your courses to develop the skills to do it. I'll be able to produce all of the dynamic interactive dashboards, and I know that everyone - my team members, my management, and the customer - is all going to love them. And it's very likely that I will have a different job next year rolling out automation, data management, quality control checks, and reporting across the company.

Funny how that happens. You go looking for better charts and come out the other side running the whole data operation.

See you next week,

Leila

When you're ready, here are some ways we can help:

🎓 Join 500,000+ members in our courses​

📺 Get free tutorials on YouTube​

👥 Train your whole team with our courses. Team pricing and progress tracking - reply for details.

This newsletter contains affiliate links, which give us a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for your support!