Creative Projects | Budget vs. Actuals

Prompt

Use VIFE Lite to create a budget vs. actuals XLSX covering 3 fictional projects × 6 cost categories, with four worksheets for cost detail, project summary, monthly cash needs and a management dashboard. Formulas must match the cached values visible on first open; include overspend alerts plus budget comparison, cost structure and monthly cash charts; label the whole workbook as simulated data. Write all content, headings, labels, sheet names and file names in English.

Result

A1fxSIMULATED DATA | Every project, figure…
ABCDEF1SIMULATED DATA | Every project, figure…2Cost Detail — Monthly Budget vs. Actual…3Fiscal year 2025 (Jan–Dec) · USD · One…4Variance = Budget − Actual, so a positi…5ProjectCost CategoryMonthMonth No.Budget (USD)Actual (USD)6Orion CRM RolloutLaborJan 2025137200407707Orion CRM RolloutLaborFeb 2025243400428508Orion CRM RolloutLaborMar 202534960051210910

Budget_vs_Actuals_Simulated_3Projects.xlsx — four worksheets, 216 simulated cost records, 1,142 live formulas with cached results written alongside them, so every value displays on first open.

What's inside

SheetContents
Cost Detail
One row per project × cost category × month (3 × 6 × 12 = 216, FY2025). Budget and actual inputs in yellow; Variance, Variance % and Status are formulas. Frozen header, filter, totals row.
Project Summary
A) Portfolio by project — budget, actual, variance, variance %, utilisation %, status, count of over-budget categories, largest overrun category. B) Six cost categories with budget/actual shares. C) 18-row project × category matrix that feeds the dashboard.
Monthly Cash Needs
12-month budget vs. actual with variance, cumulative budget/actual/variance, remaining budget, cash requirement (larger of budget and actual outflow); per-project monthly actuals; quarterly roll-up.
Management Dashboard
8 portfolio KPIs, a ranked overspend-alert table for all 18 project-category lines (Critical / Warning / Watch / OK with recommended action), and three charts: budget vs. actual by project, cost-structure pie by category, monthly cash budget vs. actual.

Simulated results (FY2025)

  • Total budget 3,725,000 · actual 3,860,120 · variance −135,120 (3.6% over) · utilisation 103.6%
  • Harbor ERP Migration −109,490 (5.98% over) and Orion CRM Rollout −50,010 (4.37% over); Willow Mobile App +24,380 under budget but flagged Watch at 96.7% consumed
  • 9 of 18 project-category lines over budget; Consulting is the worst category (−86,990, 13.8% over); largest single line is Harbor ERP / Labor (−81,790)
  • 7 lines rated Critical, 2 Warning, 3 Watch, 6 OK

Labelling — every sheet carries a red "SIMULATED DATA — every project, figure and name is fictional" banner, plus the workbook properties, page header and footer.

Verification — the saved file was reopened from disk: 216 detail rows at the correct grain with no blanks; all 1,142 formula cells have cached values and none return an error token; detail, summary, category, matrix, monthly, quarterly and KPI figures were recomputed independently from the source rows and match exactly; 3 charts present on the dashboard; no duplicate cell records; column widths set on every used column.

Limit — no spreadsheet renderer (LibreOffice/Gnumeric) exists in this environment, so I could not produce a pixel preview. Layout was checked with a deterministic width and text-fit audit instead: text-fit warnings are at zero, and chart anchors sit in columns J–T, clear of every data column. Worth a quick visual glance on first open.

How it was made

Mode
Spreadsheet
Template
Budget planner
Try this prompt

Related spreadsheet prompts