Variance Analysis Software

Gain better control over your variances

Name: Variance Analysis Platform - Drivetrain
Brand: Drivetrain
Rating: 4.9 (65 reviews)

Ensure your business stays on course to achieving its goals by having complete visibility into how your key business metrics are tracking against your plans, budgets and forecasts with automated BvA reporting.

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Fueling finance teams globally

4.9

Rating by G2 users

Outcomes

Spend more time on analysis

Automate data collection, consolidation, and BvA reporting so you can spend time on what’s important.

Share actionable insights fast

Analyze variances at the line-item level so you can quickly identify their root causes and correct course faster.

Democratize access to accurate data

Share variance reports with department heads so they can track the performance of their KPIs in real-time.

See your variances in real time

Automate reporting of budget vs. actuals, plan vs. actuals, and forecast vs. actuals across all KPIs important to your business – ARR, vendor expenses, headcount costs, and any other custom metric.

Integrate your ERP, CRM, HRIS, Billing, and other business applications to access your actuals data with a click of a button and the confidence that your data is always accurate and up-to-date.

Quickly identify the drivers of variances and share actionable insights

Drill down to the transaction level to identify factors driving unfavorable variance that need improvement and those driving favorable variances that you can leverage for even faster growth.

Share department-level visualizations and charts with key business stakeholders so everyone has access to the information they need to make better decisions.

“Drivetrain has allowed us to automate a majority of our financial reporting including board decks, monthly closes, flux analyses, and sending BvAs out to each budget owner.

It has already saved us significant time, only a handful of months after beginning the implementation process.”

Andrew De Fanti

FP&A Manager, Quantum Metric

Built for faster and real-time variance analysis

Budget variances

Monitor differences between your projected budget and your actual expenses in real-time.

Flux analysis

Drill down to the transaction level to understand and explain fluctuations in key financial metrics.

Financial variances

Automate BvA reporting for key line items in your income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement.

Cost/expense variances

Monitor spending by keeping a close watch on your hosting, headcount, marketing, and other costs.

Revenue variances

Identify opportunities for growth by tracking variances in sales volumes, customer base and price.

Operational variances

Ensure that your business is running efficiently by keeping a track of key SaaS metrics - LTV:CAC, magic number, etc.

Frequently asked questions

What are the benefits of variance analysis and do I need specialized software to do it?

Here are just a few key benefits that variance analysis and reporting can have for your business:

1. Variance analysis can increase investor confidence in your ability to read the market and control expenses when you’re able to not only identify variances but also the actions necessary to resolve them.
2. Variance reports are a powerful tool for managing your business, allowing you to make data-driven adjustments to your operations for greater efficiencies and better financial performance.
3. Variance analysis can help you pinpoint high-performing sectors that could benefit even further from additional investments. Similarly, identifying unfavorable variances can indicate areas of your business that might be negatively impacting performance.

You can use a spreadsheet to do your variance analysis. However, spreadsheets have a number of limitations which, over time and with growth, drive most companies to seek a better solution or combination of tools for more comprehensive financial management.

What are the core features to look for in variance analysis software?

The ideal tool for variance analysis will combine the ability to run a variety of different types of variance analysis with automated reporting to reveal variances in real time.

‍Understanding variance in your business is critical to staying on track and leveraging any new opportunities that variance analysis reveals. So, bonus points if the software offers features that allow you to dig deeper into the data to identify the key drivers of variance.

Effectively communicating results to stakeholders is also important. So, don’t forget to look for reporting features that allow you to do that, with interactive, customizable dashboards and reports.

You can usually find at least some of these features in various business budgeting applications. However, you may need to consider adding a financial reporting tool or other software to get everything you need.

How does Drivetrain support variance analysis?

Drivetrain is a robust, strategic financial planning and analysis (FP&A) platform that offers all the core capabilities you need for real-time variance analysis and variance reporting.

Drivetrain can help you achieve greater control over your budget variances with forecasting tools that help you develop more accurate budgets that result in fewer variances.

Monitoring the difference between your projected budget and your actual expenses is just one of the types of variance analyses Drivetrain supports. You can also:

Find financial variances by looking at plan vs actuals for key line items in your income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement.
Analyze variance in your revenue by tracking actuals vs. forecasted sales, new customer acquisition, and churn.
Identify operational variances by tracking performance for key SaaS metrics, such as LTV:CAC and magic number, against your targets.

Regardless of the type of variances you’re looking at, you’ll be able to drill down to the transaction level to identify the factors driving any that are unfavorable so you can better control them. If needed, you can dig in deeper with a root-cause analysis, to identify the potentially complex mix of contributing factors to more fully explain those variances.

You can also drill down into favorable variances and use Drivetrain’s scenario analysis capabilities to test different ideas for leveraging the insights your variance analysis reveals for faster growth.

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Tracking, analyzing and solving variances is hard.

Drivetrain makes it easy.