Budget vs. actual dashboard

Who it's for

FP&A, controllers and department heads at the monthly business review.

What's in it

• Revenue and operating expenses vs. budget
• Variance in $ and %, favorable in green
• A bar per line showing actual as a share of budget
• One-line commentary from each owner

The prompt

Works in Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot. Fill in the [brackets], then paste your data under it.

Build a budget vs. actual dashboard for [MONTH] from the data below.
- Tiles: revenue vs. budget (%), operating expenses vs. budget (%), operating income, and year-to-date opex vs. budget (%).
- Table: Revenue first, then each expense line (cost of revenue, sales, marketing, R&D, G&A or my departments), with budget, actual, variance ($), variance (%), a small bar showing actual as a share of budget with a marker at 100%, and a "why" column.
- Favorable variances in green, unfavorable in red (for expenses, under budget is favorable).
- Total operating expenses row at the bottom.

My data:
[paste budget and actuals by line, plus a note on each big variance]

Build it as ONE self-contained HTML file:
- Put all the data inside the file. No API calls, no fetch, no external data.
- Use plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript (inline SVG for charts is fine). If you need a chart library, load it from cdn.jsdelivr.net.
- Add a "data as of" date under the title.
- Make it readable on a laptop and print cleanly to one page if possible.

Data you need

• Budget by department for the month (and year to date)
• Actuals from the close
• A short explanation for each material variance

Make it and share it

1. 1Gather the numbersExport or copy: Budget by department for the month (and year to date); Actuals from the close; A short explanation for each material variance.
2. 2Paste the promptCopy the prompt into Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot, fill in the brackets and paste your data under it.
3. 3Check itTie the totals back to your source reports before anyone else sees it.
4. 4Put it on the fridgeUpload the HTML file to Dashfridge, or connect your AI and say "put this on the fridge". Publish it and invite your team.

Keep it current

How often: Monthly, right after the close. Update the same dashboard each time instead of sending a new file, so your team keeps one link and every past version is kept. Your AI can do the refresh for you: see dashboards that update every week.