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Your budget dashboard, variance caught before close.

Budgeted spend, actual spend, variance, and operating expenses by department in one view, reconciled from accounting, so you catch the overspend before the quarter closes.

See how to build one in Definite

What’s in a budget dashboard?

A budget dashboard is the single governed view of plan versus actual: what was budgeted, what was spent, and where the variance falls by department and category. The version worth managing to reconciles accounting data, so the budget tracker on the screen reflects the spend in the books.

Budget tracking lives in spreadsheets that go stale the day after they are updated. When budgeted spend, actual spend, and variance come from one set of definitions modeled on the accounting system, you catch the overspend in real time instead of discovering it at close.

Who it’s forCFOs, controllers, and department heads who own the budget.

CadenceRefreshed daily; reviewed at monthly close and during budget planning.

Built fromQuickbooks, Xero

§ How it works

Describe your dashboard. Fi builds it.

Fi is the AI agent inside Definite. Tell it what you’re trying to understand, and it connects your sources, defines the metrics, and builds the dashboard. One conversation, not a project.

You

I need a budget view: planned spend versus actual spend by department, the variance, and where we are over or under, all tracing back to the books.

✦ Fi

Here's your budget dashboard, on your Quickbooks and Xero data.

Here’s what’s in it

The top row leads with the 4 numbers that matter most: Budgeted spend, Actual spend, Budget variance, Operating expenses. Each shows a delta versus the prior period so you can see direction at a glance. Below that, 2 trend charts (Actual spend over time, Budget variance trend) show how the headline numbers have moved over time. A breakdown (Actual spend by department) splits the metric by dimension so you can see what's driving the total. A detail table (Budget summary) rounds it out with the secondary metrics and their deltas. Every number is computed from the exact formulas shown in the metric table below. Composites are derived from their components, not pasted in, so the KPI tiles, breakdowns, and totals all reconcile to each other.

Illustrative data

Budgeted spend

$659K▲ 5.6%

Data ▾

Period	Budgeted Spend
Jan	$535K
Feb	$545K
Mar	$554K
Apr	$557K
May	$568K
Jun	$560K
Jul	$577K
Aug	$571K
Sep	$597K
Oct	$604K
Nov	$624K
Dec	$659K

Actual spend

$753K▲ 7.1%

Data ▾

Period	Actual Spend
Jan	$547K
Feb	$483K
Mar	$564K
Apr	$498K
May	$591K
Jun	$595K
Jul	$607K
Aug	$600K
Sep	$647K
Oct	$650K
Nov	$703K
Dec	$753K

Budget variance

14.3%▲ 12.8%

Data ▾

Period	Budget Variance
Jan	2.3%
Feb	-11.4%
Mar	1.9%
Apr	-10.6%
May	4.0%
Jun	6.3%
Jul	5.2%
Aug	4.9%
Sep	8.3%
Oct	7.7%
Nov	12.7%
Dec	14.3%

Operating expenses

$528K▲ 7.8%

Data ▾

Period	Operating Expenses
Jan	$372K
Feb	$379K
Mar	$414K
Apr	$451K
May	$439K
Jun	$457K
Jul	$419K
Aug	$426K
Sep	$477K
Oct	$503K
Nov	$490K
Dec	$528K

Actual spend over time

Data ▾

Period	Actual Spend
Jan	$547K
Feb	$483K
Mar	$564K
Apr	$498K
May	$591K
Jun	$595K
Jul	$607K
Aug	$600K
Sep	$647K
Oct	$650K
Nov	$703K
Dec	$753K

Actual spend by department

Data ▾

Department	Actual Spend
department A	$151K
department B	$337K
department C	$266K

Budget variance trend

Data ▾

Period	Budget Variance
Jan	2.3%
Feb	-11.4%
Mar	1.9%
Apr	-10.6%
May	4.0%
Jun	6.3%
Jul	5.2%
Aug	4.9%
Sep	8.3%
Oct	7.7%
Nov	12.7%
Dec	14.3%

Budget summary

Budgeted Spend$659K▲ 5.6%

Actual Spend$753K▲ 7.1%

Budget Variance14.3%▲ 12.8%

✦ Fi

Anything else I can do for you?

You

Which department is over budget, and by how much?Show me the categories driving the variance in engineering spend.How has actual spend trended relative to plan over the last six months?What would full-year spend look like if the current run rate holds?Break budgeted spend by category instead of department.Trace this month's actual spend back to the general ledger entries.Break variance by department and flag any department over 10%.Add a month-over-month actual spend trend by category.Show me budgeted versus actual as a waterfall chart.

Schedule a demo →Start this conversation with your data →

First version in a dayFree to start, flat pricingNo infrastructure to set up

§ Why the numbers tie out

Every metric traces back to your systems

This is the part a BI tool can’t fake. Each metric is defined once, in your warehouse, from a specific object in a specific source. Change the definition in one place and every tile, report, and answer moves with it. So the number on the screen is the number in the source.

Quickbooks

◆ General LedgerBudgeted SpendActual SpendBudget VarianceOperating Expenses

◆ Income Statement (Profit & Loss)Actual SpendBudget VarianceOperating Expenses

Metric	What it measures	How it's calculated	Sources
Budget Variance	—	(Actual Spend − Budgeted Spend) ÷ Budgeted Spend	Quickbooks

§ Then do something about it

Have our agent watch for you

A budget dashboard tells you what happened, and Fi tells you why. The last step is not having to remember to check. Point Definite at the one number you can’t afford to miss, and it watches that number for you off the same definitions as your dashboard. When it moves, you hear about it before the next review instead of during it. One metric, one action, always reversible.

See how autonomous agents work →

Agents for this stack

Quickbooks agent →

Xero agent →

Autonomous agent · watch churn

Watch

A metric you choose

net revenue churn

→

Judge

One condition

> 5% week-over-week

→

Act

One action

alert #revenue + open doc

◄──── then waits · cooldown 24h before it can act again ────

Scoped to a single metric and a single action. You arm it; you can disarm it anytime.

§ The data that powers it

Built from whatever you already run on

Connect the systems you already use. Any source of these types works, and you don’t move data into a warehouse, because Definite is the warehouse.

Accounting & Finance8

Quickbooks

Xero

NetSuite

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance

No warehouse to stand up or connect. See how the platform models your data →

§ Get started

Build your budget dashboard

From signup to a working dashboard in one sitting. No data team required.

Sign up

Free to start. No credit card, no infrastructure to set up.

Create your account →

Connect your sources

Stripe, your CRM, accounting. Definite syncs and models them automatically.

Decide your metrics

Pick the numbers that matter or let Fi propose them from your data. Every metric gets one definition, governed in one place.

Ask Fi to build it

Describe what you need in plain language. Fi builds the dashboard, and you refine by asking follow-ups.

§ FAQ

Common questions

Usually because the spreadsheet was last updated at the start of the quarter, and actual spend has moved. The reconciliation map above shows which ledger object each metric comes from, so actual spend and variance update daily from the accounting system instead of waiting for a manual refresh.

Accounting (QuickBooks or Xero) for actual spend, the general ledger, and expense categories. Budget targets can be set in the governed definitions or imported. Definite syncs the actuals and computes variance against plan.

Budget variance is the percentage difference between actual spend and budgeted spend. Positive means overspend, negative means underspend. When the variance comes from governed definitions modeled on the accounting system, you see the real gap instead of a stale spreadsheet comparison.

It is a live ECharts dashboard running on a deterministic synthetic dataset, labeled illustrative. Variance is computed as the difference between actual and budgeted spend, by the formula in the metric table. Connect your accounting system and Fi builds the same view from your data.

A BI tool plots whatever budget file you upload. This is the output of a governed model — actuals sync from the accounting system and variance is computed against plan daily — so the budget reflects the books in real time instead of a chart built on a spreadsheet that went stale at the start of the quarter.

Tell Fi what you need, the way the prompt above reads. Fi connects your accounting system, proposes the budget metrics, and you refine by asking follow-ups. The first version catches variance without a spreadsheet.