Cost and variance analysis
A cost line is over budget. Is it more people, higher rates, more activity, timing, or something that will not recur? Covirage joins the ledger to the budget, forecast, headcount and purchase order files and builds the bridge. The lines sum to the variance, and each opens to the cost centres, accounts and vendors behind it.
Variance commentary is the slowest part of the close, because it means asking cost centre owners what happened. The files already know most of it: who joined, which rates changed, which invoices landed early. Covirage reads them and drafts the explanation beside the figures that support it.
One definition across all three, by entity, function, cost centre and account, with versions kept.
Each variance split into its drivers, with timing items separated from real overspend.
Spend by vendor against commitments, and headcount and contractor movements against plan.
Three steps, in this order.
Ledger actuals, budget and forecast, headcount, and purchase orders or commitments.
Cost centres sum to functions, functions to entities, and the total to the trial balance.
Any cost centre, any period, to budget, forecast or last year.
Short answers. The Help centre has the long ones.
From purchase orders, accruals and the phasing of the budget. An invoice that arrived a month early against a phased budget is timing; the same cost with no budget behind it is not.
Yes. Each owner sees their own cost centres and can ask their own questions, which takes the routine queries off the finance team.
No. It reads exports from the ledger and the planning system and explains the differences between them.