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Variance analysis answers one question: how are we doing against the plan? The Variance report walks your plan against your actuals, month by month, and shows exactly which line items — New business or Renewals — drove the difference. It’s the view that holds up in front of a board, because it doesn’t just say you’re above or below plan; it says why.

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What you need first

A plan to compare against. Variance reads the monthly targets you set on the Plan screen — a New ARR target and a Renewal ARR target for each month. With no plan set, there’s nothing to measure against, so this is the one workflow that depends on a setup step.

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What the report shows

For each month, the report puts your target next to your actual for two lines:
  • New — ARR from newly signed business.
  • Renewal — ARR from contracts that renewed.
The actuals come straight from your contracts, and the split is automatic: a signed contract with no earlier contract behind it counts as New; one linked to a predecessor counts as Renewal. You don’t categorize anything by hand. Only confirmed contracts count, the same as everywhere else — see Judgment is the gate.

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Reading it

The value is in the split. If you’re behind plan, the report tells you whether New is lagging or Renewal is — whether the gap is a sales problem or a retention problem. And because it’s month by month, you can see exactly when the gap opened rather than discovering it at quarter-end. Every figure traces back to the contracts behind it, so a number you’d defend in a board meeting is a number you can open up and show.

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Not the same as comparing snapshots

These are two different “what changed” views, and it’s worth keeping them straight:
  • Variance is plan vs actual — are we on target?
  • A snapshot comparison is one date vs another — what moved since last time?
Use variance to judge performance against the goal you set; use a snapshot comparison to explain what shifted week to week.