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Cost and variance analysis

Ask what is driving your costs, and get the answer with the rows behind it.

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 centers, accounts and vendors behind it.

Upload sample data to try itSee a demoEvery variance is computed by our tools and reconciled to the trial balance. The AI model explains it; the arithmetic is ours.
Askevery figure from a tool
What is driving my cost increase this month?
Costs are $1.2m over budget. Contractor rates explain $0.5m, concentrated in two vendors on the data program. Headcount is eleven above plan in Operations, worth $0.4m. $0.2m is timing and reverses next month, and $0.1m is a one-off license true-up.
from cost_bridge(scope=me, period=month, compare=budget)
5 driversheadcount, rate, volume, timing and one-offs
3 comparisonsto budget, to forecast and to last year
Scopedeach owner sees their own cost centers

The commentary writes itself, and it is right

Variance commentary is the slowest part of the close, because it means asking cost center 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.

Actual, budget and forecast

One definition across all three, by entity, function, cost center and account, with versions kept.

The cost bridge

Each variance split into its drivers, with timing items separated from real overspend.

Vendors and people

Spend by vendor against commitments, and headcount and contractor movements against plan.

How it works

Three steps, in this order.

Send the files

Ledger actuals, budget and forecast, headcount, and purchase orders or commitments.

Confirm the roll-up

Cost centers sum to functions, functions to entities, and the total to the trial balance.

Ask

Any cost center, any period, to budget, forecast or last year.

“What is driving my cost increase?”The question this page exists to answer

Questions teams ask

Short answers. The Help center has the long ones.

How does it know what is timing?

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.

Can cost center owners use it directly?

Yes. Each owner sees their own cost centers and can ask their own questions, which takes the routine queries off the finance team.

Does it replace the planning system?

No. It reads exports from the ledger and the planning system and explains the differences between them.

Read more

Written for this job: the measures, the data you already hold, and the arithmetic.

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