Budget vs. Actuals is what a spreadsheet cannot do: since your sales and collections already live in Cord, your budget can compare itself against reality automatically, month by month. Under each budgeted cell you’ll see the actual figure for that month with its variance — green if you’re above plan, red if you’re below.

[!NOTE] Available from the Professional plan. On plans without the feature, the connect button shows you what it unlocks.

Connecting a row

1. Open a schedule under Budgets and find the row you want to compare (it can be an input or a formula row).
2. Press the link icon next to the row’s name.
3. Choose the data source:
   • Closed sales ($) — the total of your approved, paid, or invoiced quotes, by closing month.
   • Units sold — the quantities from the accepted lines of those quotes.
   • Collections received ($) — money actually collected (quote payments, deposits, balances, and installments), by collection month.
4. Save. The row is marked with a green link and a “vs.” tag with its source; the schedule shows the Connected to real data badge.

To change the source or disconnect the row, press the link icon again.

How months are matched

Cord reads each period label to know which month to compare against:

• Formats like Jan 2026, January 2026, 2026-01, or 01/2026 work.
• Labels without a recognizable month and year (e.g. Q1, Week 3, or Jan with no year) don’t show an actual — the budgeted cell renders normally, with no actual line below.
• Future months don’t show actuals either: the figure appears once the month arrives.
• A past month with no activity shows actual 0 — that’s information too.

[!TIP] If you create the schedule with the period presets (Quarter, 6 months, Full year), the labels already come in the right format.

Reading the variance

Under each cell you’ll see actual $X followed by a pill with the percentage against the budget:

• Green (+13%) — the actual met or beat your budget.
• Red (−8%) — the actual came in below plan.

The comparison uses the same criteria as the rest of Cord’s reports: closed sales follow the Analytics criterion, and collections add up payments actually received, with no double counting.

The shortcut: a plan that’s already connected

If you create your budget with the Full financial plan (the one-click wizard), the Sales and Collections rows come pre-connected to their real sources — nothing to configure.