You can use the @VAR and @VARPER functions to calculate a variance or percentage variance between budget and actual values.
You may want the variance to be positive or negative, depending on whether you are calculating variance for members on the accounts dimension that are expense or nonexpense items:
Expense items. You want Essbase to show a positive variance if the actual values are less than the budget values (for example, if actual costs are less than budgeted costs).
Nonexpense items. You want Essbase to show a negative variance if the actual values are less than the budget values (for example, if actual sales are less than budgeted sales).
By default, Essbase assumes that members are nonexpense items and calculates the variance accordingly.
To tell Essbase that a member is an expense item:
When you use the @VAR or @VARPER functions, Essbase shows a positive variance if the actual values are less than the budget values. For example, in Sample.Basic, the children of Total Expenses are expense items. The Variance and Variance % members of the Scenario dimension calculate the variance between the Actual and Budget values. See Figure 115, Variance Example.