Forecast vs Actual Comparison

Workforce plans are only useful if teams can compare them with what actually happened.

Nortrue's forecast vs actual comparison helps organisations close the loop between workforce planning and financial reality. Forecasts are generated from people data, saved as point-in-time baselines, and then compared with monthly actual workforce spend once each period closes.

The result is a clearer view of planning accuracy. Leaders can see the prior forecast, actual spend, variance, error percentage, missing actuals, notes, and rolling accuracy across recent completed months.

Today, this comparison is focused on monthly organisation-level workforce spend. Teams can capture context through notes, but Nortrue does not yet automatically decompose variance by team, role, person, vendor, payroll source, or contractor movement.

How forecast variance is calculated

Nortrue calculates monthly workforce cost variance by comparing actual spend with the relevant saved baseline forecast.

Variance = actual workforce spend - baseline forecast spend

Variance percentage = variance / baseline forecast spend

Forecast accuracy is then reviewed across the last six completed months where both a baseline forecast and actual spend are available.

Current behaviour

• Forecasts are generated from people records, salary and day-rate data, active dates, team membership, utilisation, leave, employee type, role, vendor, and location.
• Baselines are saved as point-in-time monthly forecast snapshots.
• Actuals are entered monthly at organisation level for closed periods.
• Variance is compared against the latest prior baseline for the month being reviewed.
• Accuracy is calculated across recent completed months where both baseline and actual spend exist.
• Context is captured through notes rather than automatic root-cause decomposition.

What this does not do yet

Today, actual workforce spend is captured at monthly organisation level. Nortrue does not yet automatically break actual-vs-forecast movement down by team, role, person, vendor, payroll source, hire timing, or contractor movement.

Teams can still use notes and workforce context to explain what changed, but detailed variance decomposition is not currently automated.

Forecast vs actual comparison is part of Nortrue's Costs workspace, connecting people data, workforce forecasts, saved baselines, monthly actuals, and planning accuracy.

It gives technology and finance teams a clearer way to review whether workforce plans are translating into expected spend, where context needs to be captured, and how the next planning cycle should improve.