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Compare Budgets​

Compare Budgets puts up to two other budgets side by side with the one you have open — account by account, with a live variance — so you can answer "what changed between drafts?" or "how does this stack up against the last picture?" without leaving the budget.

Starting a comparison​

Choose Budget → Compare Budgets. The Compare Budgets dialog opens with three cards across the top — Active Budget, Compare 1, and Compare 2 — and a browser beneath: pick a project on the left, then hit SELECT on a budget to drop it into the next open slot (click a slot card first to target a specific one). Tabs let you browse My Projects and Shared with Me — or, in a workspace, Workspace and My Files — so you can compare against budgets from any of your libraries.

A few ground rules:

  • Up to two compare budgets at a time; the active budget itself can't be selected.
  • The dialog's own advice applies: "For the cleanest comparison, use budgets with the same currency." In fact, COMPARE stays disabled unless the selected budgets share the active budget's primary currency.
  • Goalpost and sample budgets can't be compared.
  • On a budget someone shared with you personally, comparing is reserved for the owner ("Compare Budgets is not available on budgets shared with you."). Workspace members with normal access can compare freely.
  • Compare and Filter Budget are mutually exclusive — whichever is active disables the other.

Your slot selections are remembered, so reopening the dialog picks up where you left off. Press COMPARE to go.

Reading the comparison​

A header band appears at the top of every level showing three cards — Comparing: (your active budget), Compare 1: in blue, and Compare 2: in purple — each with its Budget Total. From the band you can hit Options to change the selection or Close Compare to exit.

On the Topsheet and Account levels the grid gains Compare 1 and Compare 2 columns (color-matched to their cards) alongside Subtotal, T & F, Incentives, and Total, plus a Variance column. Page, %, and Original are hidden to make room. At Line Item Details the header band follows you down, but the grid shows the active budget's lines only.

How rows line up: accounts are matched by number or name. Accounts in both budgets appear first; accounts only in your active budget show 0 in the compare columns; accounts that exist only in a compare budget are appended below, read-only, with a red negative variance. The summary rows — Total, Applied Tax & Fringe, Gross, Incentives, Net — are each compared against their counterpart in the compare budget.

Variance = your Total minus the selected compare budget's Total, with negatives in red. With both slots filled, a radio button on each compare card picks which budget Variance is measured against — both compare columns stay visible either way.

While comparing​

Compare mode is a reading mode: cell edits, inserts, deletes, moves, and pastes are all disabled until you close the comparison. One exception — you can still flag rows, and compare-mode flags are their own set, separate from your normal budget flags, so you can mark discrepancies to revisit.

Drilling works normally: double-click an account and the Account level opens with the matching sub-accounts from each compare budget lined up the same way.

Ending the comparison​

  • The X on a compare card drops just that slot and keeps comparing with the other.
  • Close Compare exits entirely — normal columns return, the banner comes back, editing and Filter Budget re-enable.
  • Quitting the app also clears the comparison.

Compare mode vs. Variance Comparison​

They're related but different: Show Variance Comparison (Budget menu) measures your budget against its own saved Original snapshot; Compare Budgets measures it against other budgets. In compare mode the Original column steps aside and Variance is repurposed to track the selected compare budget. See the Variance Comparison article for the snapshot workflow.