How VarianceDesk works
From QuickBooks to a board-ready package in seven steps.
- 1
Connect QuickBooks Online
Authorize read-only access. We sync your Profit & Loss by account, class and department using the QuickBooks Accounting API.
- 2
Load your budget
Pull the Budget entity from QuickBooks, or upload a CSV mapped to accounts and periods using our template.
- 3
Compute variance
For each account we compute actual − budget ($ variance), the % variance, and a direction-aware favorable/unfavorable flag.
- 4
Roll up by class & department
Account variances roll up into each class and department so you can see which segments beat or missed their plan.
- 5
Rank the drivers
Variances are ranked by absolute net-income impact and grouped into revenue, COGS and operating expenses.
- 6
Bridge net income
A waterfall bridges budgeted net income to actual net income — the sum of every driver equals the net variance.
- 7
Write commentary & export
The engine drafts board-style commentary grounded only in the numbers, then we assemble a branded PDF + Excel package.
The variance math
- $ variance = actual − budget.
- % variance = (actual − budget) ÷ |budget|.
- Direction: for income, actual > budget is favorable; for expenses, actual > budget is unfavorable.
- Net-income impact: +Δ for income over budget, −Δ for expense over budget. The impacts sum exactly to the net variance.