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A board-ready report that sets your approved budget beside your actual figures by account, flags the variances worth a sentence, and lets you write that sentence. Pro and Premium plans. Businesses find it in the sidebar; firms as a tab on each client.

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Load the three files

The first time you open it you see three upload boxes. They are the same boxes as in Books & ledgers — upload once, used everywhere.
Budget vs Actual setup page with three upload boxes, an Up to which month picker, a Which year picker and an Open report button

The setup page: chart of accounts, ledger balances and budget

Drop a .xlsx, .xls or .csv (under 10 MB) on a box. TaxLayer asks which sheet, which month the balances run up to, or which year the budget is for, checks every row, and either files it (✓ Balances added up to September 2026) or tells you the first thing wrong (Account code 60.01 appears twice, on rows 14 and 22.). Load the chart first; the other two need it. A new upload replaces the earlier one. Epsilon’s balance per month export matches the ledger-balances template as it is. Balance-sheet classes are left out of the report on purpose — the page lists them under Excluded account classes (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 85, 87, 88, 89). Only income and expense accounts take part. When all three are in, press Open report.

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The report

Budget vs Actual report with Total income, Total expenses, Net result and Flagged lines cards and an account tree with Actual, Reconciled, Budget, Variance and Why? columns

The report: cards, then the account tree with Actual, Reconciled, Budget and the variances

  • Year to date, Month or All view. Month has a month picker.
  • A programme (cost centre) selector when your chart has them.
  • Four cards: Total income, Total expenses, Net result (actual, budget, variance € and %), and Flagged lines. Each card carries a Basis line — which ledger upload the figure comes from, when it was uploaded, and the period it covers — so a board member can see exactly what the number rests on.
  • The tree: Class › Category › Sub-Category › Account, with Actual, Reconciled, Budget, Variance €, Variance % and Why?.
Thresholds — Flag variances over [ ]% and [ ] € — decide which lines are flagged. Set once; they’re remembered. Click an account for its month-by-month figures. On a flagged row, type the reason in Why? — it’s saved when you leave the box and appears on the board view. Data sources (top right) opens the three upload boxes again without leaving the report.

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The Reconciled column

Actual is what your ledger file says. Reconciled is what TaxLayer can confirm from the sources it holds — bank statements, documents and myDATA — after the bank and balance reconciliations.
  • A plain figure means the account has been reconciled and this is the confirmed amount.
  • ✦ ‹amount› suggested is TaxLayer’s own figure for that account, offered where it has evidence but nobody has confirmed it yet. Click it to see where it comes from.
  • — means there is nothing to reconcile against for that account.
When Actual and Reconciled differ, one of them is wrong — usually a posting that hasn’t reached the ledger yet, or a document that was never booked. That is the line to ask about before the board does. The row No account yet (‹n›) collects transactions TaxLayer has confirmed but that aren’t mapped to any account in your chart. They show only in Reconciled. Map them in Books & ledgers and they move into the right account.

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What changed

When a new ledger upload changes earlier months, a band appears: 14 accounts changed across 23 month-lines since the previous upload · net €2,140. See the lines shows account, month, was, now, difference — so a restated prior month is never a surprise in the boardroom. Those rows get Prior month restated in Why?.

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Board view and sharing

Board view is the same report without the app around it, laid out for A4 landscape — use your browser’s Print. You can still switch Year to date / Month / All and change the thresholds there; Back to the report returns you.
Board view of the Budget vs Actual report with the four cards and the account table laid out for print

Board view: the report without the app around it

Share board makes a read-only link that works without a TaxLayer login for 10 days. The reader can switch month, view and cost centre for that one organisation and nothing else. A new link is made each time; send it only to the person it’s for.