Last week in the Chandoo.org Forums, I was asked could I reproduce the chart below in Excel
Which I did.
This post will describe how to tackle this chart step by step.
You can follow along using some sample data: Download Sample File
Data
To produce this chart we are going to use an Excel Stacked Bar chart with two series of data
The first Series will be for the Colored Bars
The second series is for the Arrow and the gap to the left of the arrow
The data required is shown in the above table
The Arrow Value is an input and is the value the Arrow will point to
The data is the values for the colored bars
The Arrow is two calculations that setup the Arrow, the 58 is the offset from zero to the left side of the arrow
The 4 is the width of the arrow. That is the arrow will point to 60 = 58 + 4 /2
The Cumulative Data is required for the Legend
Chart
In Excel 2016
Select the range C3:G4 and goto Insert Chart
Select Bar, Stacked Bar
In Excel 2010
Select the range C3:G4 and goto Insert Chart
Select Bar, Stacked Bar
Now with the Chart selected goto the Chart Tools, Design Tab
Click on the Switch Row/Column Tab
Excel All Versions
You should now have a chart like:
Bar 1 is the data and Bar 2 will become the arrow
We don’t need the Charts Title, Legend, Grid Lines or Axis, so select each and press Delete
Next we will add an arrow
The Arrow will be placed as a Fill in the Upper Orange Bar
Select a Blank Cell eg: I3
Then goto the Insert, Shapes Menu and select an Isosceles Triangle
Fill the Arrow with what ever color you want and drag the Handle down so that the arrow points down
To insert the arrow, select the Arrow and press Copy (Ctrl+C)
Now select the Chart and click on the Upper Orange Bar, click on it again until it is the only Bar with Handles Showing, the press Paste (Ctrl+V)
Now select the Upper Blue Bar and set its fill and outline to None
Right Click on any Bar and select Format Data Series
Set the Series Overlap to 100% and set the Gap Width to 0%
Now click on the chart, just above the Blue Bar
When the Resize Handles appear, drag them to resize the chart so that the gap between the Top and Bottom Bars is none
We can now add the labels
Select the Orange Bar and then Select it again until it is the only Bar with Handles
Right Click on it and Add Data Label
Now click on the new Data Label and click on it again until the Handles change as shown below
Now in the Formula Bar enter =Chandoo.org!$C$5 and apply
Right click on the Data Label and select Format Data Labels
Set the Label Position to Inside Base
Now repeat for each of the other Bars
and Finally add a Label to the arrow linking it to cell C2. You have to manually drag the Label to above the arrow.
Conclusion
Now that you know how to make a Bar Chart with Indicator Arrow, it should take you less than a minute to copy the bar chart, convert it to a Column chart and reformat it to a Column Chart with arrow as shown below
I hope you enjoyed the above tutorial
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.