Forum Discussion
Simple Variance Analysis
Hello all,
Hoping for some help as I am new to Power BI. I am being encouraged to use this at work for some simple financial analysis, but am struggling to do some standard variances, which i used to do easily in excel. Example:
| Product Number | July | Aug | Variance | % Variance |
| 123 | 100 | 120 | 20 | 20% |
| 456 | 2500 | 4000 | 1500 | 60% |
How do I create the variance and % variance columns in PowerBI? (Apologies if this is a basic question and asked many times before!)
thanks in advance
rocky84 , You have create measure for this month and last month and use those
examples measures
MTD Sales = CALCULATE(SUM(Sales[Sales Amount]),DATESMTD('Date'[Date]))
last MTD Sales = CALCULATE(SUM(Sales[Sales Amount]),DATESMTD(dateadd('Date'[Date],-1,MONTH)))
last month Sales = CALCULATE(SUM(Sales[Sales Amount]),previousmonth('Date'[Date]))
this month = CALCULATE(SUM(Sales[Sales Amount]),DATESMTD(ENDOFMONTH('Date'[Date])))
last MTD (complete) Sales = CALCULATE(SUM(Sales[Sales Amount]),DATESMTD(ENDOFMONTH(dateadd('Date'[Date],-1,MONTH))))Variance
diff = [MTD Sales]-[last MTD Sales]
diff % = divide([MTD Sales]-[last MTD Sales],[last MTD Sales])Power BI — Month on Month with or Without Time Intelligence
https://medium.com/@amitchandak.1978/power-bi-mtd-questions-time-intelligence-3-5-64b0b4a4090e
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LUBbvcxtKA
2 Replies
rocky84 , You have create measure for this month and last month and use those
examples measures
MTD Sales = CALCULATE(SUM(Sales[Sales Amount]),DATESMTD('Date'[Date]))
last MTD Sales = CALCULATE(SUM(Sales[Sales Amount]),DATESMTD(dateadd('Date'[Date],-1,MONTH)))
last month Sales = CALCULATE(SUM(Sales[Sales Amount]),previousmonth('Date'[Date]))
this month = CALCULATE(SUM(Sales[Sales Amount]),DATESMTD(ENDOFMONTH('Date'[Date])))
last MTD (complete) Sales = CALCULATE(SUM(Sales[Sales Amount]),DATESMTD(ENDOFMONTH(dateadd('Date'[Date],-1,MONTH))))Variance
diff = [MTD Sales]-[last MTD Sales]
diff % = divide([MTD Sales]-[last MTD Sales],[last MTD Sales])Power BI — Month on Month with or Without Time Intelligence
https://medium.com/@amitchandak.1978/power-bi-mtd-questions-time-intelligence-3-5-64b0b4a4090e
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LUBbvcxtKAThe DAX approach in the accepted answer works well. Worth adding for anyone coming from Excel who finds this workflow: the measure-per-metric pattern scales up quickly once you add more months or more products, you end up maintaining a lot of measures.
For this exact use case (July vs Aug, Variance, % Variance across products), Flexa Tables on AppSource lets end-users add the variance column directly in the published report select the two periods, the absolute and % variance appear automatically. No DAX measures to write or maintain.
Free trial on AppSource
