A company's planned budget at the beginning of the year will always end up being different from how the year actually plays out. It's just impossible to predict how the year will go. The differences ...

Static budget variances are the differences between what a company or individual thought it would spend in its budget versus what it actually did. In a static budget, a company or individual creates ...

Even the best budgets rarely turn out exactly the way that planners expect. Whenever you're planning in advance for a period of time, you'll inevitably make some mistakes in your estimates, and it's ...

Daniel Jassy, CFA, is an Investopedia Academy instructor and the founder of SPYderCRusher Research. He contributes to Excel and Algorithmic Trading. David Kindness is a Certified Public Accountant ...

As a small-business leader, taking care of the bottom line is critical for growth, as well as for maintaining your current payroll and customers. Understanding sales price variance can help you ...

Gross profit is one of the most important measures of profitability in corporate finance. Gross profit is total revenue minus the cost of goods sold (COGS). Because this metric only takes into account ...

Direct labor costs are wages paid to employees to manufacture a product. Because of rising and falling demand, you need to create a budget for the coming year. This will tell you how much you need to ...

Even the best budgets rarely turn out exactly the way that planners expect. Whenever you're planning in advance for a period of time, you'll inevitably make some mistakes in your estimates, and it's ...