What each period covers
Cadence and ownership are set in reporting cadence. Each period is assembled from the one below it, not re-derived. See reporting best practices.
What a budget report contains
The process
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1. Pull spend from the flat file
Never from a platform dashboard. Platform figures move after the fact as billing reconciles, and a report built from them disagrees with itself a week later.
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2. Reconcile against the approved budget
Compare against the figure recorded on the brief, not against what people remember agreeing. If they differ, the budget was changed without being recorded, which is the finding.
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3. Calculate pace and forecast
Both from budget pacing. The forecast is the number people act on, since it says what will happen rather than what has.
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4. Read the change log before writing anything
Most variances have a recorded cause. A budget shifted between channels on Tuesday explains Wednesday’s movement, and reporting it as a performance change is simply wrong.
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5. State the variance, then the cause, separately
Blurred: “Spend was 12% under because LinkedIn underperformed.”Separated: “Spend finished 12% under plan. LinkedIn delivered 60% of its allocated budget; the audience was smaller than the platform estimate suggested.”The reader can then disagree with your explanation without disputing your number.
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6. File it
Into the archive for that period. The archive is what makes the next period assemblable without re-deriving anything.
Reporting an underspend honestly
Underspend gets softened more often than overspend, because it feels like the safer error. It usually isn’t: it means a plan was wrong, or a campaign couldn’t deliver, and both are worth knowing. Report the amount, whether the cause was delivery or a deliberate decision, and whether the money was reallocated or simply not spent. “Came in under budget” without those three is not a finding.Exceptions
A campaign still in flight at period end reports spend to date and forecast, not a final figure. Mark it as in-flight so a later report showing a different total doesn’t read as a contradiction.Related resources
- Budget concepts What a budget is made of, and what makes one judgeable later.
- Budget planning process Where the approved figure and daily rate come from.
- Budget pacing process The calculation behind pace and forecast.
- Report on results The full reporting path.
- Reporting best practices One source, separated observation and cause.
- Reporting cadence Who reports what, how often.