The Budget vs Actuals report lays your planned spending next to what you have actually spent, line by line, for a budget you have set up. It answers one question before an overspend becomes a problem: are we on track, or are we over?
Budgets in ImpactGraph can be scoped to a funding source, to your whole organization, or to a dimension like a program or location. The report reads one budget at a time for a chosen period. For each budget line you see what was forecast, what has been spent, how much is left, and how far off plan you are.
Before you run it
The report runs against a budget you have already created. Today it reports on funding-source budgets, so you pick a funding source that has a budget set up. The Funding Source picker lists only the funding sources you have built a budget for. If one you expect is missing, it has no budget yet.
Set the budget up first on the funding source's Budget tab, then come back here to run the report. See How to use Funding Source Budgets for that setup.
Budgeting at the organization and dimension level is rolling out. As those become available to your organization, you will run and read the report for them the same way you do for a funding source.
Run it
Go to Reports and open Budget vs Actuals.
Pick the budget to report on. Today that means choosing a Funding Source from the dropdown. Only funding sources with a budget appear here.
Click Run Report.
The report covers the budget period that includes today by default, so a fresh run shows you where the current period stands. To look at a different period or an earlier budget version, use Advanced before you run (covered below). The Run Report button stays disabled until a period is set, which happens automatically once you pick a funding source with a budget.
Read the columns
Each row is one budget line. The columns:
Category: the budget line's name, as you set it up (for example, "Personnel Services").
Ledger Accounts: the ledger accounts mapped to that budget line. Actuals roll up from these.
Forecast: the budgeted amount for this line in the selected period.
Actual: what's actually been spent against it. Click an Actual to drill into the transactions behind it.
% Used: how much of the forecast has been spent. It turns red once the line is over budget.
Variance %: how far actual is from forecast. Green with a "+" means you're under budget. Red means you're over.
Remaining: forecast minus actual. Green when there's budget left, red when the line is overspent.
If your budget lines are tagged with Dimensions, you'll also see a column for each Dimension that applies, showing which option each line rolls up to.
A highlighted unbudgeted row appears at the bottom when money was spent within this budget but coded to a ledger account that isn't on it. It catches spending that landed outside the plan. A total row at the bottom, labeled Grant Total, sums the forecast across every line.
Change the period or budget version
Click Advanced to open Advanced Report Options before running:
Budget Period: pick a different period. The report defaults to the period covering today.
Budget Version: this only appears when a funding source has more than one saved budget version. Use it to run the report against an earlier version.
Use Accrual Accounting: switch the report from cash basis to accrual by counting journal entries instead of cash movement. Accrual is the basis behind GAAP, the standard accounting rules auditors and funders expect. For which basis to pick, see Cash basis vs accrual basis in your reports.
Any option you change off its default shows as a chip under the controls, labeled Period, Version, or Accrual Accounting. Click the chip's X to clear that one option and return it to default.
Drill into the transactions behind an actual
Click any Actual amount to open the list of transactions that make up that number. This is how you check what's driving an over-budget line, or confirm a payment was coded to the right account before you report to a funder.
Export the report
Use the buttons at the top right of the report:
Export PDF for a clean, funder-ready copy.
Export Excel for deeper analysis in a spreadsheet.
Excel export supports cash basis only. If you have Use Accrual Accounting turned on, the Excel button is disabled. Turn accrual off in Advanced, re-run, then export. PDF works on either basis.
How this differs from the Budget tab
The Budget tab is where you build and edit a budget: the categories, the mapped ledger accounts, and the amounts. On a funding source, it shows budget, actuals, remaining, and % used for one period as you work.
This report is the read-only, shareable view of that same data. It adds Forecast, % Used, Variance %, and Remaining side by side, the drill-down into transactions, and PDF and Excel exports built to hand to a funder. Build the budget on the Budget tab; run this report when you need to see variance or share it. See How to use Funding Source Budgets to set the budget up.