One TBC Essbase requirement is the ability to perform variance reporting on actual versus budget data. The variance reporting calculation requires that any item that represents an expense to the company must have an expense reporting tag. Inventory members, Total Expense members, and the COGS member each receive an expense reporting tag for variance reporting.
Essbase provides two variance reporting properties—expense and nonexpense. The default is nonexpense. Variance reporting properties define how Essbase calculates the difference between actual and budget data in members with the @VAR or @VARPER function in their member formulas.
When you tag a member as expense, the @VAR function calculates Budget – Actual. For example, if the budgeted amount is $100 and the actual amount is $110, the variance is –10.
Without the expense reporting tag, the @VAR function calculates Actual – Budget. For example, if the budgeted amount is $100 and the actual amount is $110, the variance is 10.