Create your budget-to-actual report
Current variances explained, sourced, and ready for a decision.
What does this agent do?
OpenBooks creates a budget-to-actual report by aligning the approved budget to the ledger, calculating current and year-to-date variances, tracing material changes to source transactions, and drafting explanations for human review.
What OpenBooks needs
- Approved budget uploaded
- Books current through reporting date
What OpenBooks will do
- I align the approved budget with your current chart of accounts.
- I calculate current-period and year-to-date actuals and variances.
- I identify the transactions and timing differences behind material changes.
- I draft plain-language explanations and flag decisions that still need an owner.
- I assemble the report for management or board review.
What you get
A source-linked budget-to-actual report with material variances and decisions clearly explained.
Know exactly what you’ll receive
See where the plan changed, why it changed, and what someone needs to decide next.
- Current-period budget and actuals
- Year-to-date variance table
- Material variance explanations
- Source transaction drill-down
- Decisions and forecast implications
A clear fit before you start
Boards, finance leads, and operators comparing current performance with an approved plan.
You can customize
- Reporting period
- Materiality threshold
- Department or program views
- Comparison and narrative
OpenBooks prepares. You decide.
- 1
OpenBooks calculates variances and drafts explanations from source activity.
- 2
Budget owners confirm timing, causes, and corrective actions.
- 3
Your finance lead approves the report for management or board distribution.
Before you start
Can I set the threshold for a material variance?
Yes. You can tailor the dollar or percentage threshold and choose which programs, departments, or accounts appear.
Does OpenBooks invent variance explanations?
No. Draft explanations are based on source activity and known timing. Budget owners must confirm the cause and action.
Can I edit the draft before anything happens?
Yes. OpenBooks prepares a private draft and surfaces questions. You can correct the narrative, classifications, figures, and recipients before approval.
Does OpenBooks make the final decision or submit for me?
No. OpenBooks prepares and organizes the work. Your authorized human reviews every consequential decision and handles certification or final submission where required.
How is each number verified?
Figures stay linked to the underlying ledger, transactions, and available evidence so reviewers can trace the source instead of relying on a summary alone.
What if my books are not ready?
Start anyway. OpenBooks identifies the missing prerequisites and unresolved items so you have a concrete checklist instead of discovering gaps at the deadline.
Use the words you would actually search
- How do I create a budget vs actual report?
- What should a nonprofit budget variance report include?
- How do I explain budget variances to a board?
A source-linked budget-to-actual report with material variances and decisions clearly explained.
~5 min after the approved budget and current books are available.