Sales & Gross Profit Variance Analysis (Price, Mix, Volume)

Financial Analysis, Gross profit margin analysis, Price, volume, Mix, Quantity variances, Presentation, Recommendations

What you'll learn
What are sales related variances and how do they impact profit of a business? How do these variances help explain business performance?
How to explain variances resulting from sales price, quantity and product mix differences.
How to completely explain variance vs budget and previous year in terms of dollar amounts and profit percentage (%).
How to automate variance calculation in Microsoft Excel so that files can be updated every time a new calculation is required.
How to summarize variance calculation results in the form of automated graphs/charts.
How to present the results of variance analysis to management using Microsoft Powerpoint.
How to analyse and provide recommendations to management based on results of analysis.
Complete solved Excel files
Requirements
A general understanding of sales, cost and profit (Not mandatory).
Description
Do you ever find yourself, in business review meetings, trying to explain the business performance versus budget, or prior period, but not having all the answers? Then, this course is just for you.  Being able to analyse and present the profitability of a business through variance analysis is a key business partnering skill. It can help you identify key business issues and establish your position as a trusted finance business partner to the senior management. This is a must have skill for all finance and business professionals, specially Sales Analysts, Financial Analysts, Accountants, Controllers, CFOs, General Managers and CEOs.In this course, we take a detailed look at calculating and analyzing variances in sales and gross profit (budget variance analysis and prior period variance analysis), driven by changes in sales prices, sales quantities and product mix. With the help of these variances we will be able to explain precisely the performance gap, both in terms of dollar amounts and profit margin percentages, vs budget and prior period. We will calculate the variances by developing automated Microsoft Excel files. Once all the variances in price, volume, quantity and mix are calculated, we will convert them into charts for presentation, and then analyze in detail each variance. We will also explain performance versus budget and prior year, and then make precise recommendations to improve profitability and business performance.Here is what you will learn in this course?- You will be able to explain precisely the variance in amounts for Sales, Cost of Sales and Profit vs budget and vs previous period.- You will also learn how to explain the variance in Profit margin percentage (%) vs budget and vs previous period, and what impacts the variance in margin points.- You will learn how to summarize the variance results and present it to management in the form of easy to follow graphs/charts (visualization).- You will learn how to analyse the results of the variance calculations, and provide recommendations to management (using Microsoft PowerPoint).- You will start with current period actual sales, cost of sales and gross profit of a company, compared with budget and prior year results. - You will learn about the hierarchy of sales variances; Sales Price, Volume, Quantity and Mix.- You will learn how to create Excel templates to calculate all of these variances that are automated and update as soon as new data replaces existing data (this is great for monthly and weekly, or even daily updates).- You will learn about when to use Selling price, and when to use Profit as a base for calculation.- There will be quizzes and assignments to test and reinforce your knowledge.- You will also get downloadable solved variance analysis Excel files, that we prepare during the course lectures.  In summary, by the end of this course, you will be able to explain financial performance vs budget and previous year as a result of changes from sales price, quantities and product mix. You will be able to successfully explain results, and empower decision makers to make informed business decisions based on your recommendations. This will save you a lot of time and effort, and is likely to have a significantly positive impact on your confidence and career growth. You can achieve this mastery of explaining variances in sales and profitability as soon as tomorrow, or your next meeting, if you take this course now.So, don't wait and start learning by enrolling for the course, right now.Hope to see you inside the course!

Overview

Section 1: Introduction

Lecture 1 Introduction

Lecture 2 Intro to Income statement, Net sales, Gross profit

Section 2: Sales Variances - What you need to Know?

Lecture 3 Types of Sales Variances - The Hierarchy

Lecture 4 Bases of Calculating Variance - Profit vs Selling Price?

Lecture 5 Variance calculation for different scenarios - Actual vs Bud and vs Prior Year

Lecture 6 Impact of changes in costs on sales variances

Section 3: Calculate impact of Sales Variances on Profit of a business using Excel

Lecture 7 Calculating Sales Price Variance

Lecture 8 Calculating sales volume variance

Lecture 9 Calculating sales quantity variance

Lecture 10 Calculating sales mix variance

Section 4: Calculate impact of Variance on Profit margin (%) using Excel

Lecture 11 Change in Profit % - Introduction

Lecture 12 Change in Profit % - An example

Lecture 13 Calculating Profit % variance due to Price

Lecture 14 Calculating Profit % variance due to Mix

Lecture 15 (New Bonus #1) - Calculate Profit Margin % with changes in Price, Costs & Mix

Lecture 16 (New Bonus #2) - Profit Margin % Change calculation Model

Lecture 17 (New Bonus #3) - Calculating Profit Margin % Change with changes in Price

Lecture 18 (New Bonus #4) - Calculating Profit Margin % Change with changes in Costs

Lecture 19 (New Bonus #5) - Calculating Profit Margin % Change with changes in Quantity Mix

Lecture 20 (New Bonus #6) - Calculating Profit Margin % Change with changes in $Mix (Other)

Section 5: Automated Excel modeling for Sales, Cost and prior period variances

Lecture 21 Calculate Sales $ variances

Lecture 22 Calculate Cost $ variances

Lecture 23 Calculate variance vs prior period

Section 6: Summarize the results of all variances

Lecture 24 Summarising Variances - Introduction

Lecture 25 Variance Summary Table

Lecture 26 Creating a Waterfall chart to present variances - Total variances

Lecture 27 Creating a Waterfall chart for each product

Lecture 28 Manual Waterfall Chart - Older versions of Excel

Lecture 29 Linking your Chart to Powerpoint for presentation

Section 7: Analyze, present and make recommendations!

Lecture 30 Analysing variances and making recommendations - Part 1

Lecture 31 Analysing variances and making recommendations - Part 2

Lecture 32 Q&A: What if we sold a new product that did not exist in PY or budget

Lecture 33 Bonus - High level analysis of income statement vs budget and prior year

Section 8: Wrap Up

Lecture 34 Congratulations and Thank you!

Anyone interested in explaining financial performance vs target or previous period driven by sales variances,Accountants,Financial Analysts,Controllers,Sales Managers and Sales staff,Sales Directors,General Managers and Managers of Operations,CFOs and CEOs