# BudgetVsActual

> Polarity-aware, materiality-filtered, versions tracked.

Source: https://lopifi.com/components/budget-vs-actual
Part of: Lopifi — US GAAP books on autopilot, reviewed by a CPA (https://lopifi.com)

---

- **Family:** Metrics & analysis — ---
- **Status:** Implemented
- **Spec:** https://lopifi.com/docs/catalog/13-metrics-and-analysis

## Install

```bash
npx shadcn@latest add @lopifi/theme
npx shadcn@latest add @lopifi/budget-vs-actual
```

## Specification

Actual, budget, variance (absolute and relative), and forecast, by period and by dimension. Respects `polarity` — a favorable expense variance is *under* budget. Materiality thresholds applied, with the threshold displayed. Reforecast versions are tracked so you can see what was believed when.

The variance is a **view, not a column**. Actual, Δ and Δ% are the same three figures asked three questions, and putting all of them on screen at once is how a budget review becomes a wall of numbers nobody reads to the end. The comparison is declared rather than positional: the actual column names budget as its base, so hiding the budget column to fit the screen does not silently re-point the variance at whatever ended up to its left.

Two things make this more than a three-column table, and both are here because a budget review goes wrong without them.

**The cut.** A favourable total is routinely two departments cancelling out. Engineering 1.6M over and sales 1.7M under reads, at the entity line, as 0.1M under — favourable — and says nothing about either. A variance report that can only be read at the entity level is one that will be believed for a quarter longer than it should be. Members are not required to sum to the entity — unallocated corporate spend sits outside them — and a vintage that restates an entity budget says nothing about one department's share, so under a cut the member's own budget stands rather than the component inventing an allocation nobody approved.

**The vintage.** The original plan and each reforecast are versions of one object, not "budget" plus "reforecasts": model a reforecast as a different kind of thing and "what did we believe in February" stops having a single answer. A vintage states only what it changed. The comparison base is chosen out loud in the toolbar, and the walk between versions sits under the grid, because a reforecast that quietly replaces the plan makes every past month look better than it was called at the time. September beating the version in force while missing the one the board saw in November are both true readings; a component that picked one silently would be picking the flattering one.

## Rules this component obeys

Money is minor units, never floats. `null` is not `0` and neither is redacted. Negatives render in accounting parentheses with the parenthesis column reserved on both sides. Debit and credit are two columns. Per-currency decimal places. Polarity is explicit — up is not always good. Every figure states its period, entity, currency, basis and as-of.