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Profit & Loss Reports - Change variance column for costs

The variance columns in the current P&L reports don't make sense - increased costs show as positive variances, despite the red arrow. The formula is fine for revenue and profit, but needs to be the other way round for costs. Is it possible to have this, or to add a column with different formulae for different sections?

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Claire Stephens shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
not planned  ·  AdminKelly Munro (Community Manager, Xero) responded  · 

Hi team, to confirm how the Budget Variance report works currently it'll show;

  • Green arrows for favourable amounts
  • Red arrows for unfavourable amounts
  • Increases in the amount from budget will have an upward arrow
  • Decreases in amounts from budget will have a downward arrow

We appreciate your feedback here however being open, there are no plans to change the way this logic is applied in the report, or to extend the arrow colouring across the figures/amounts in the report. 

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  • Margaret LALOR commented  ·   ·  Report

    I agree - it is illogical and incorrect. A favourable variance showing as unfavourable is incorrect by anyone's standards! And saying the arrows The brackets are the bit that need to show the correct detail. Surely it is not a difficult formula to change in the Xero program. Isn't it a simple IF formula that would differentiate variances on revenue from the variances on costs? If we are meant to be able to use Xero for reporting it needs to be correct and not rely on manual intervention to amend the reports because Xero cannot produce correct key management information.

  • Jane Godfrey commented  ·   ·  Report

    This is totally ridiculous, it's hard enough to explain positive and negative variances to CEO's let alone keep their attention long enough to do it, but then to get them to accept that negatives are great in revenue but not in expenses. you can see why they assume the accounts are just a mystery. the solution is that as accountants we have to download the reports and correct them, but I thought the idea of the changes to the Reporting suit was to make our life easier?

  • Andie Adam commented  ·   ·  Report

    In the new P&L report can the variance columns be colored please as per the old P&L report.?

  • Nick Harding commented  ·   ·  Report

    I couldn't agree more - currently the variance reporting isn't really fit for purpose so you have to export reports to Excel and fine tune them there and of course that means you miss out on the drill down capability. This should be a pretty simple fix - please add it in.

  • Sarah Rose commented  ·   ·  Report

    The Actual Vs Overall Screen (now called Budget Variance) in the new Profit and Loss does not have the coloured figures in the variance columns, only the coloured arrows.
    I'd like to bring back the coloured figures (as well as the coloured arrows) please.