FP&A · Budget control
Actual vs budget
Monthly budget control for Northwind Shipping (fictional), an 8-vessel fleet of tankers, bulk carriers and offshore supply vessels. Actuals are closed through Sep 2026. All names and figures are synthetic; the structure mirrors a real budget-control model I ran in shipping.
Key figures · YTD Sep 2026
Net hire revenue
USD 29.55M
−0.29M vs budget
EBITDA
USD 6.76M
−0.78M vs budget
EBITDA margin
22.9%
Budget 25.3%
Net result
USD 0.34M
−0.72M vs budget
Fleet utilization
93.7%
Budget 95.1% · 137 off-hire days
TCE per on-hire day
USD 14,434
Budget 14,372
Running cost per vessel-day
USD 3,618
Budget 3,528
G&A as % of revenue
6.2%
Budget 6.0%
EBITDA bridge · From budget to actual
Commentary · Generated automatically from the variances
- ▸YTD Sep 2026: EBITDA missed budget by USD 0.78M (-10.3%), at USD 6.76M against USD 7.54M.
- ▸Off-hire days took away USD 0.41M. Main drivers: OSV Gaia (+14 days) and MT Calypso (+8 days).
- ▸Crew took away USD 0.26M. Reflects the 4% wage agreement effective from April.
- ▸Running cost took away USD 0.20M. Largest overruns: lubricants (USD 0.11M) and repairs & maintenance (USD 0.06M).
- ▸Fleet utilization was 93.7% vs 95.1% budgeted; running cost per vessel-day USD 3,618 vs 3,528.
- ▸Full-year outlook: EBITDA USD 9.33M, below the USD 10.24M budget by USD 0.91M, assuming current rate levels, the wage increase and higher lubricant prices persist through December.
Rule-based: the engine ranks the EBITDA bridge drivers, finds the vessels and cost lines behind each one and writes the sentences. The analyst reviews and edits instead of starting from a blank page.
Synthetic data for a fictional company, for illustration only.