Core Questions for 2026 Budget Planning
<aside>
ðŸ§
Purpose: a clean, fast checklist of prompts to drive OPEX planning. No toggles, minimal decoration, consistent phrasing.
</aside>
1. Quick Overview âš¡
- Report total YTD spend vs budget
- Identify vendors or categories with largest variances
- List top vendors by YTD spend
- Surface unusually high variances with causes
- Flag backloaded or front‑loaded costs
2. Baseline and Analysis (2025) 🧩
- Summarize 2025 OPEX by department with Plan Volatility Index (PVI)
- Identify vendors or accounts with largest OPEX variances and explain causes
- Show all vendors BVA (Budget vs Actuals) for 2025 with heatmap
- Highlight accounts with actuals but no budget in 2025
- Show department YTD trend, grouped by vendor and by Labor
- Within Labor, show a YTD heatmap grouped by account, group by entity, group by department
- For my department, show all vendors BVA for 2025