From the archive

Day 48

Sunday, 20 September 2026

Day 47Day 49
Intermediate

Flag over- and under-budget departments in a quarterly variance report

SIGN reduces a variance down to which direction it went, ABS reduces it down to only how big it was — nesting SIGN's result inside IF turns that direction into the label a report actually wants.

Task:

You're pulling together the quarterly budget variance report for the exec team. Four departments' budgeted and actual spend for the quarter are listed below. In column D, work out the size of each department's variance in dollars, regardless of whether they came in over or under. In column E, label each department "Over budget", "Under budget" or "On budget". In column F, work out the variance as a percentage of budget, rounded to one decimal place.

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