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 Aug 2026
Net hire revenue
USD 26.46M
−0.27M vs budget
EBITDA
USD 6.20M
−0.69M vs budget
EBITDA margin
23.4%
Budget 25.8%
Net result
USD 0.44M
−0.64M vs budget
Fleet utilization
94.4%
Budget 95.7% · 109 off-hire days
TCE per on-hire day
USD 14,421
Budget 14,364
Running cost per vessel-day
USD 3,619
Budget 3,525
G&A as % of revenue
6.1%
Budget 6.0%
EBITDA bridge · From budget to actual
Commentary · Generated automatically from the variances
- ▸YTD Aug 2026: EBITDA missed budget by USD 0.69M (-10.0%), at USD 6.20M against USD 6.89M.
- ▸Off-hire days took away USD 0.37M. Main drivers: OSV Gaia (+14 days) and MT Boreas (+7 days).
- ▸Crew took away USD 0.21M. Reflects the 4% wage agreement effective from April.
- ▸Running cost took away USD 0.18M. Largest overruns: lubricants (USD 0.09M) and repairs & maintenance (USD 0.06M).
- ▸Fleet utilization was 94.4% vs 95.7% budgeted; running cost per vessel-day USD 3,619 vs 3,525.
- ▸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.