Budget vs. Actual Charts – 14 Charting Ideas You can Use

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Post updated in May 2018.

Wow, Just Wow. I am thrilled and over joyed seeing the quality and quantity of responses received for our first visualization challenge. There are just too many good responses that dedicated a whole weekend afternoon compiling a post about them.

First let us take a look at the entries, in no particular order. You can click on the image to see expanded version. Also I have added one or two lines for each chart about what is good and what is not so good.

1. 3 colors and everything is clear

3 colors and everything is clear
Submitted by: Gerald

What is WOW about it?
Very easy to understand the values
Shows the differences in % which makes more sense to business users

What is not so wow about it?
Somewhat misleading, since the budget variance is shown in a corner (thus when you have actual as zero, you will see 2 bars, one with budget, one with variance thus confusing the reader that 50% is the variance)

2. A simple budget vs. Actual chart

A simple budget vs. Actual chart
Submitted by: Juwin Thomas

What is WOW about it?
Looks slick

What is not so wow about it?
Provides very little information as no labels are available
Could have used one color for center instead and changed the orientation

3. Creative Options to Visualize Budget vs. Actual Data (1)

Creative Options to Visualize Budget vs. Actual Data (1)
Submitted by: Lee

What is WOW about it?
Very easy to compare trends, for eg. It is easy to conclude that Center 1 is has grown in the last 5 quarters

What is not so wow about it?
Instead of displaying actual-budget, it could have been budget-actual since our data is like that. That way it would have been easy to compare the variances

4. Creative Options to Visualize Budget vs. Actual Data (2)

Creative Options to Visualize Budget vs. Actual Data (2)
Submitted by: Lee

What is WOW about it?
Creative and shows lots of data in one quick snap shot

What is not so wow about it?
Kind of difficult to read and understand

5. Creative Options to Visualize Budget vs. Actual Data (3)

Creative Options to Visualize Budget vs. Actual Data (3)
Submitted by: Lee

What is WOW about it?
Creative and Shows the quarter-wise trend in a different way
Provides average variance and actual/budget %s too

What is not so wow about it?
Could have been better if the both actual and budget values are show how incorporated

6. Simple and Easy to Read

Simple and Easy to Read
Submitted by: MB

What is WOW about it?
Very simple and very easy to understand

What is not so wow about it?
Could have added labels since the gaps are too small

7. Quarter-wise Snapshot of Budget Performance

Quarter-wise Snapshot of Budget Performance
Submitted by: NamKo

What is WOW about it?
Provides all the useful information, budget, actual, budget-actual, variance %s

What is not so wow about it?
It is difficult to see how the centers have performed across centers

8. Center Level Performances Along with Cumulative Values

Center Level Performances Along with Cumulative Values
Submitted by:

What is WOW about it?
Provides a quick snapshot of center level values along with cumulative values
Looks slick
Has an option to add comments


9. Simple and Easy to Read (2)

Simple and Easy to Read 2
Submitted by: Efrit

What is WOW about it?
Uses less color and stresses on actual values in the budget frame
Easy to compare both center-level and between centers

What is not so wow about it?
Since the variances are low, it is difficult to find the values without labels

10. A Pivot Chart show the Budget vs. Actual Performances

A Pivot Chart show the Budget vs. Actual Performances
Submitted by: Jacob

What is WOW about it?
Uses pivot charts to show both center level and cumulative performances
Can be filtered using pivot chart features

What is not so wow about it?
The cumulative values are shown in a smoothed curve, although it is good, it kind of misleads
Labels could have been used as the values are close to each other

11. Simple and Easy to Read (3)

Simple and Easy to Read 3
Submitted by: Michael Podemski

What is WOW about it?
Shows values in tables thus making it easy to read

What is not so wow about it?
The 3d feature of budget marker are kind of misleading as the gaps are very small, could have used a line instead

12. Cumulative Variances along with Budget and Actual Performances

Cumulative Variences along with Budget and Actual Performances
Submitted by: TJ

What is WOW about it?
Shows cumulative variances as well

What is not so wow about it?
Could have used the lesser colors

13. Using form controls and displaying one center data at a time

Using form controls and displaying one center data at a time
Submitted by: D Murphy

What is WOW about it?
Provides all the information for a center quickly
Takes less space

What is not so wow about it?
Difficult to compare the performance of various centers in a quarter
You have to calculate the gap between budget and actual

14. Showing YTD Trends along with budget and actual trends

Showing YTD Tredns along with budget and actual trends
Submitted by: Pablo GM

What is WOW about it?
Looks slick
Provides a variety of information

What is not so wow about it?
Could have used colors instead of gradients
Doesn’t tell the difference between budget and actual in numbers

A Big thank you to all the people who have sent their entries through email and blog comments.

Thanks to readers for constantly checking out the entries and commenting on the ones that needed improvement.

 

Additional Material You Should Check out If you want to Make Charts Like Above:

Thermometer charts in Excel

Target vs. Actual Chart in Excel | Best charts for showing % progress

Stacked Bar Chart Techniques

How to create interactive chart in Excel

Excel Combination Chart Basics

Our Excel Charting Page with a Ton of tutorials and DIY Training Material

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29 Responses to “Customer Service Dashboard using Excel [Dashword Week]”

  1. Tom Quist says:

    Looks good, Mara. Keep up the good work!

  2. William Solera says:

    Thx Mara, your work is great, congratulations...

  3. Francis Chin says:

    wow ! Great stuff Mara !!
    I am amazed on the work you did !

    What I like about your dashboard
    1. The first impression is the colors used. Very smart use of colors that matches each other, easy on the eye - make people wants to find out more !

    2. Clear message shown for the tweetboard for Quick overview on the state of situation.

    3. Use of creative titles for your charts "Information Desk".

    4. Clear and uncluttered charts. Gives reader a clear perspective with good use of charts colors too.

    5. Good use of Legend to describe what color meant "Highest Sales out of the three months"

    6. Of course, good use of Check boxes and Slider bar to offer interactiveness on your charts.

    Suggestions
    1. You may want to consider formatting your Y and X axis labels to show thousands, in $500K format instead of $500,000, so you can even made your chart look much neater.

    2. Budget Variant Chart - This one is special...I took a second look and try to understand it. I am not sure if this is the best chart to visualize Sales VS Budget and Variances. And the Variance of 16.19% is positive, so u may want to use conditional formatting to make it green color, red if negative.

    Overall is Great Work and Great Effort !!! Keep it up and I am so proud of you !

    Francis Chin
    http://www.francischin.com

  4. Sabrina says:

    Great Work Maya, just wondering if "5" Scrollable list of various gift shop items, can compare the previous 2 and current month selected in the above picklist, just one more suggestion if we can use top 5 gift category by using donut and bar mix chart to show sales mix for different months

  5. Sabrina says:

    Chandoo I would like to thank you for posting such helpful tricks for creating dashboards, I have learned a lot from your KPI Dashboard demo, I have created one dashboard to compare performce of Sales Associates, thaks a lot again

  6. Fred says:

    Thanks for the idea! Great job! You are giving me a lot of inspiratons!

  7. Mara says:

    Thanks everyone for the nice comments. I'm such a novice at this so I was so grateful for Chandoo's class and for everyone who submits ideas on his blog.

    Francis: Thanks so much for your comments. You're an inspiration. For the budget variance chart, I actually got that idea from one of Chandoo's post on budget vs actual. There was one that was simple and easy to read so I learned how to do that and made it dynamic. I'm open to any other ideas you have for budget vs actual. I'm always looking for ways to improve.

    Sabrina: Thank you for you for your suggestion on the top 5.

  8. Bhushan Sabbani says:

    Dear Mara,

    Great work.

    But i one suggestion regarding the INFORMATION DESK graph is consist of month but which year it belong is not there if it would be there it would be great.

    Warm Regards
    Bhushan Sabbani
    +91 98208 26012

  9. Avni says:

    Thanks for this idea... Great Stuff !!

  10. Ravi Kiran says:

    Excellent dashboard Mara.
    The best I like about the dashboard is the choice of colors. They are cool and not distracting. Thanks for sharing the file.

    @Chandoo
    Thanks for the dashboard week Chandoo. I am learnt a lot in the last 2 days. I am excited over the next 3 days! 🙂

    Regards,
    Ravi.

  11. VIO67 says:

    Great work Mara ! Thanks for sharing .

  12. goa homestay says:

    Mara, I liked the line, "Need to be more helpful." Our government needs to print this line, laminate it and post it in all government offices for the staff to see.

  13. Darshan says:

    Hi there, i have been recently visiting this blog it is really great, the best one for Excel, wish Chandoo great success ahead.

    I have one query, if you protect the data sheet the chart with the checkbox gives and error saying the data is protected and cannot be modified, is there a way around. This is cause if we want to publish this to someone who should only see it and do no changes to the data, is it possible please guide.

    This could be a silly but bear me i am novice to excel 🙂

    Thanks.

  14. praveen says:

    nice work.

  15. praveen says:

    inspired me a lot, working on few dashboard projects...

  16. Jay says:

    dear mara
    looks great .any reason why you have not used the bullet chart for the actual vs target chart.on the whole it is simple and elegant .jay.

  17. Gautam says:

    Dear Chandoo,

    The word Dashboard in the heading is misspelt.

  18. Krrish says:

    Wow. Very Nice work Mara. Next week I am going to take the Course, I will try to post my work here.

    Thank you so much for your helpful blog. Always appreciated your tips and tricks.

    I am proud that you belongs to our Vizag City.

  19. Krrish says:

    The above comment, I forgot mentioned about Chandoo, those two paras is about Chandoo. 😀

  20. Azucena says:

    Thank you Mara!

  21. vishal says:

    Thx Mara, your work is great, congratulations…

  22. Nalini says:

    Great Work Mara!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  23. Aayush says:

    Hi Chandoo,
     
    I had been following your blogs for tips and tricks on excel. I am working with Media agency and we collect the data. Now this data has several parameters based on several legends. For eg Class A - legend color red, classB - legend color green and so on. Class A has several characteristics and parameters and heading etc. Now everytime we gather data and make pivot then based on the data in the pilot tables - top 10 we need to insert those in charts manually and also need to change the colors of legends and also. We create nearly 300 slides every month sector wise and it takes nearly our 4-5 days in doing that. Do you have any sample dashboard which will be helpfull to us and we can create it in a day.

  24. Gowravan says:

    Thanks really amazing one,

    it helped me in desgining OTACE report

    Regards
    Gowravan M
    9980651792

  25. mukhtar says:

    Awesome Job done here .............

  26. Samuel Amankwah says:

    very good master piece but wont to know if you can design KPI's for a financial institution. Thank you

  27. tajdeed pharma says:

    I need help to make performance for our company

    we have about 10 products from 5 years old

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