Friends and supporters of Chandoo.org,
I am very happy to tell you about another great way to learn Excel & stay awesome
Chandoo.org podcast
That is right. As part our mission to make you awesome in Excel, this year I will be adding a podcast.
A podcast eh? Why?
Let me tell you a story first. One of my goals for 2014 is to increase my stamina. So on Jan 1st of 2014, I opened Nike + app on my iPhone, went to coach feature and selected “Run 10K” as my first goal. It has been 3 years since I ran 10k. So I wanted to get back in the game to improve my fitness and health. The app suggested an 8 week program to help me reach 10k. It sounded difficult, as I had to run more than 250 KM in 8 weeks. But I pushed on. As of today, I am at 177. I know I missed a few days here and there, but I already ran 10K thrice since starting and I feel good about where I am today.
Dude… what are you talking about? I am here to know about the podcast!
I am coming to that. To give me company during the runs, I choose a bunch of podcasts. This is the first time in my life I paid serious attention to podcasts. It is a fruitful experience. Every time I go for a jog, not only I am getting healthier, but also smarter. I realized how powerful, effective and useful podcasting can be. So I thought, “Why not provide similar experience to our readers?”
And thus born the idea of Chandoo.org Podcast.
How will the podcast help you?
I am still at the drawing board when it comes to our show. But here is what you will gain,
- Strategies & tactics: You will learn about various spreadsheet design strategies, tactics, tricks and ideas I follow. You will learn how to handle tricky situations (like lots of data, changing requirements, dynamic everything, no vba etc.).
- Whats new: What is happening the world of spreadsheets, data analysis, visualization, reporting & self-service BI. My views & opinions mixed with latest industry trends.
- Tips & Tricks: Excel tips, tricks, ideas that are easy to remember and quick to implement.
- Interviews: Interviews with fellow Excel gurus, bloggers, MVPs and authors. Hopefully we get to feature Microsoft Excel team members, industry leaders and other prominent figures.
- Case studies & Personal experiences: Explanations on projects, things I am learning and how to manage large-scale spreadsheet development projects.
- Book & Product Reviews: I read a lot of books on data analysis. I also come across quite a few add-ins, templates, Excel courses. My views and recommendations on the same so that you can make informed decisions.
- Ask Chandoo: Send me your questions. I will answer them in the podcast.
- Announcements: Announcements about my upcoming training programs, live classes or products so that you can make the best use of them.
When is it launching?
In the first week of May. I will share more details once we are ready to go. Few more things:
- It is free and awesome. Just like our articles, tutorials & examples.
- You can subscribe to it thru iTunes, Zune or other popular pod-casting directories.
- You can also listen to it from our site.
- Full episodes, show notes, resources and downloadable templates will be posted on our site.
- I am hoping to do a show once every 2 weeks. Lets see how this goes.
What should we call it?
If all of this sounds interesting, here is how you can help.
I am still not sure what to call this podcast. I have a few options for the name. Can you suggest one?
The names I am thinking are,
- Awesome.xls
- Speaking Cells
- Become Awesome Analyst Podcast
- Chandoo.org Podcast
Can you tell me which one should I use? Post your choice in the comments.
PS: If you don’t like any of these names, suggest some.
31 Responses to “Beautiful Budget vs. Actual chart to make your boss love you”
Would be considerably easier just to have a table with the variance shown.
On Step 3, how do you "Add budget and actual values to the chart again"?
There are a few ways to do it.
Easy:
1) Copy just the numbers from both columns (Select, CTRL+C)
2) Select the chart and hit CTRL+V to paste. This adds them to chart.
Traditional:
1) Right click on chart and go to "select data..."
2) From the dialog, click on "Add" button and add one series at a time.
One more way to accomplish it is just select the columns into chart. Press Ctrl+C and then press Ctrl+V
Regards
Neeraj Kumar Agarwal
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work for me in Excel 2010. The "Var 1" and "Var 2" columns cannot combine two fonts to display the symbol and the figure side-by-side.
Secondly, there is no option to Click on “Value from cells” option when formatting the label options. The only options provided are Series Name, Category Name or Value.
@TheQ47... the emoji font also has normal English letters, so if you use that font, then you should be ok. I am assuming your computer doesn't have that font or hasn't been upgraded for emoji support.
Reg. Excel 2010, you can manually link each label to a cell value. Just select one label at a time (click on labels, wait a second, click on an individual label) and press = and link it to the label var 1 or var 2.
I am using excel 2010, please explain how to apply Step 12
Regards
Neeraj Kumar Agarwal
Hi Neeraj,
"Value from cells" option is only available in Excel 2013 or above. In older versions, you have to manually adjust the label value by linking each label seperately.
Read this please: https://chandoo.org/wp/change-data-labels-in-charts/
Sir, you are just awesome.
Your creativity has no limit.
Regards
Neeraj Kumar Agarwal
Hi Chandoo,
I just found your website, and really love it. It helps me a lot to be an Excel expert 😉
Currently I am facing with a problem at step 11:
Var1 Var2
D30%
A5%
B0%
B4%
B7%
C10%
C13%
D27%
I42%
Though at mapping table, I used windings, here formula uses calibra. How I can change it? I am able to change only the whole cell. In this case numbers will be Windings too.
Thanks for your help!
Hi Mariann... Welcome to Chandoo.org and thanks for your comment.
If you wanted to use symbols from wingdings and combine them with % numbers, then you need to setup two labels. One with symbol, in wingdings font and another with value in normal font. Just add the same series again to the chart, make it invisible, add labels. You may need to adjust the alignment / position of label so everything is visible.
[…] firs article explains how you can enhance your charts with symbols. You can simply insert any supported symbol into your data and charts. To some extend you can […]
You're a good person, thank you to share your knowledge with us, I will try to do in my work
Great visualization of variance. My question is that is this possible in powerbi?
How would you go about it?
HELLO, WHY CANT I FIND VALUES FOR LABELS IN EXCEL 2013
Dear chanddo sir,
What to do if we have dynamic range for Chart. How this will work. can you able to make the same thing works on dynamic range.
Sir Chandoo,
Good Day!
First, I'd like to say that I am very grateful for your work and for sharing all these things with us.
I tried to do this chart but it seems that the symbols don't work with text (abs(var%),"0%") unless we keep the Windings font style.
The problem is, it converts the text into symbol as well and you wont see the 0% anymore. I'm using Windows 7.
WOW - Segoe UI Emoji
This is the greatest discovery for me this month 🙂 Thanks for sharing.
Here's my two-cents:
https://wmfexcel.com/2019/02/17/a-compelling-chart-in-three-minutes/
Sir This is awesome chart, and very easy to made because of your way to explain is very simple , everyone can do. Thank you
one problem i am facing, I hv made this chart , but when i am inserting data table to chart it is showing two times , how can i resolve this
in this chart when i am adding new month data for example first i made this chart jan to mar but when i add data for the apr month graphs updated automatically but labels are missing for that new month
Hi Renuka,
Please make sure the formulas for labels are also calculated for extra months. Just drag down the series and set label range to appropriate address.
So I am playing with the Actual chart here - but amounts are bigger than your - you have 600 as Budget - my budget is 104,000 - is there a way to shorten that I am unaware of
thank you - I LOVE YOUR SITE
Thanks for the tips and tricks on Excel. In the Planned versus Actual chart examples, you use multiple values (ex. multiple Categories in above). How can this be done when we have only 1 set of values? For example if I have only this:
Planned Actual
SOW Budget 417480 367551
How can I create a single bar chart like the one above?
Thank you Chandoo.
This one is just perfect for my Quarterly Review presentation on Operational Budget against Actual Performance for the Hospital I'm currently working with.
Just Subscribed today (10 minutes ago)
Is there a way to make the table of data into a pivot table to be able to add a slicer for the graph due to many different categories and months?
Hi, I tried to modify you template with something appropriate for me, and I found a problem. this template was modified by me started with excel 2010, then 2016 and finally 2019. Same thing - somehow appear an error - or didn't show the emoticons for positive percentage or doubled the emoticons for some rows. I suspect to be from excel. if is need it I can sand you my xlsx for study. Please help if you can.
Hi Chandoo,
Could you please check the Var Formula in Step1. You have mentioned budget-actual and when i did this i got different values but when reversed like actual-budget i got the actual value what you have demonstrated in step1.
Please share your view.
This is a great chart (budget vs. actual). However, in trying recreate it, I cannot color in the UP Down bars individually, and they all become formatted with the same color. I'm using Office 365. Look forward to the feedback.
Thanks.
Dan
pls explain in detail step 7
While in the Excel sheet you have used following formula for Var
Var = Actual - Budget
But
in the note, you have written
Var = Budget - Actual
Good Presentation and Data information.thank you so much chandoo.