What is a Budget Report?

A budget report is a comparison of the actual results of a business to a pre-established budget. This report is issued to anyone responsible for a line item in the income statement, which usually means the department managers. The budget report is used to determine which expenditure levels are too high, so that actions can be taken to bring expenditure levels back down to the budgeted amount. This report is one of the most frequently-used tools for maintaining control over the financial results of a business.

The Income Statement as a Budget Report

A modified income statement can be used as a budget report. In this format, an extra column is included that states the budgeted amount for each line item, while a third column calculates the variance between actual and budgeted results. This approach requires the involvement of the accounting department, which has to load the final budget numbers into the report writer module of a firm’s accounting software.