Understanding budget variance

Variance is simply the gap between what you planned to spend and what you've actually committed or paid. It's the single clearest signal of whether an event is on track financially.

A positive or negative variance tells you at a glance whether you're trending under or over your plan. Watching it per category — rather than only as one big number — shows you exactly where the pressure is. Catering might be creeping over while the venue holds steady, and you'd never know that from a single total.

The real value is catching these trends early. When you can see a category drifting over budget while there's still time to act, you can renegotiate, trim elsewhere, or flag it to the client before it becomes a surprise on the final invoice.

Variance draws on the planned and actual figures you track on each line item, so keeping those up to date keeps your variance honest. To set up your budget structure, see /help/budget-categories-and-line-items.