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 Jul 2026
Net hire revenue
USD 22.93M
−0.35M vs budget
EBITDA
USD 5.28M
−0.70M vs budget
EBITDA margin
23.0%
Budget 25.6%
Net result
USD 0.27M
−0.63M vs budget
Fleet utilization
93.9%
Budget 95.6% · 104 off-hire days
TCE per on-hire day
USD 14,404
Budget 14,362
Running cost per vessel-day
USD 3,615
Budget 3,521
G&A as % of revenue
6.2%
Budget 6.0%
EBITDA bridge · From budget to actual
Commentary · Generated automatically from the variances
- ▸YTD Jul 2026: EBITDA missed budget by USD 0.70M (-11.6%), at USD 5.28M against USD 5.97M.
- ▸Off-hire days took away USD 0.42M. Main drivers: OSV Gaia (+14 days) and MT Boreas (+8 days).
- ▸Crew took away USD 0.16M. Reflects the 4% wage agreement effective from April.
- ▸Running cost took away USD 0.16M. Largest overruns: lubricants (USD 0.08M) and repairs & maintenance (USD 0.06M).
- ▸Fleet utilization was 93.9% vs 95.6% budgeted; running cost per vessel-day USD 3,615 vs 3,521.
- ▸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.