Smart Analysis helps you quickly surface key drivers behind variances in your financial data. Instead of manually investigating discrepancies in your spreadsheets, you can use AI-powered insights to understand trends, pinpoint potential issues, and take action faster.
Create a Smart Analysis Variance Report
In Cube, go to the Reporting & Analytics section and click Smart Analysis.
Here, you’ll set up your variance comparison between two scenarios and set the filters that Cube will use to run the report. Be sure the scenarios contain data for the time periods and filters you select. You’ll see a notification if there isn’t enough data to run a Smart Variance report. Learn more about importing data or publishing to your scenarios.
First, select your Base Scenario, such as Actuals, and the Comparison Scenario, such as Budget. The variance calculation is always the Base Scenario minus the Comparison Scenario.
Then apply filters for the rest of your dimensions to refine your analysis by account, time period, and any other custom dimensions in your Cube. In the example below, the filters available are the dimensions in this Cube: Account, Time, Department, Entity, Product, and Market.
Last, choose if you want the variance displayed as an absolute amount or a percentage showing favorable or unfavorable variances between the two selected scenarios and choose a minimum variance threshold to filter out insignificant variances.
Clicking Analyze will run the report and return the top five variances by amount and percentage and AI-generated insights on key variance drivers.
Switch to the Report tab for a structured table of variances across key dimensions. Click on a dimension to open a detailed view broken down by that dimension. Click on another dimension to continue drilling into the report.
Send your team the link to this smart variance summary and report to share insights, refine forecasts, and improve financial planning by copying the URL from your browser. Dimension access will apply to shared reports based on their user permission settings. Learn more about data access groups and permissions in Cube.