SaaS Budget Template with Budget vs Actual and Rolling Forecast

How the budget template works

Each month the template rolls MRR forward: last month's MRR, minus churn, plus expansion, plus new MRR. Revenue for the month equals that MRR. Cost of goods sold (hosting, payment processing, support) is a percentage of revenue. Payroll adds up every headcount line whose start month has arrived, using the fully-loaded monthly cost per person. Other operating costs are flat monthly amounts. Net burn is total spend minus revenue, and ending cash falls by that burn each month.

Runway is shown the standard way, ending cash divided by the last month's net burn, so it tells you how long the money lasts after the plan year if nothing changes. If cash runs out inside the year, the template says which month.

Worked example: the default budget

A company starts Jan 2027 with $40,000 MRR ($480,000 ARR) and $800,000 in the bank. It adds $4,000 of new MRR a month, loses 2% of MRR to churn and gains 1% from expansion, and spends 20% of revenue on COGS. Six people cost $65,000 a month, a new engineer joins in April (payroll $77,000), and other costs are $17,000 a month.

January works out as $40,000 × (1 − 0.02 + 0.01) + $4,000 = $43,600 MRR. COGS is $8,720, so spend is $8,720 + $65,000 + $17,000 = $90,720 and net burn $47,120. Over the year revenue totals $750,757 and the company burns $491,395, ending with $970,817 ARR and $308,605 of cash. At December's burn of $29,279 that is 10.5 months of runway left, which is the number to fix before the plan is approved.

Budget vs actual: reading the variance

Now say the first quarter closes. Revenue comes in at $43,000, $45,500 and $47,000, and total spend at $92,000, $93,000 and $94,500. Set Months closed to 3, type those six numbers, and the template shows the variance for each month.

Variance is actual minus budget. A positive number is good on revenue and bad on spend, so the template labels each one favorable or unfavorable in words rather than leaving you to remember the sign. Here the miss grows every month (−1.4%, −3.5%, −7.3%), which points to a permanent shortfall in new MRR or higher churn rather than a timing slip. That distinction decides whether you reforecast; the budget vs actual variance guide shows how to split a revenue miss into volume, price, expansion and churn.

How a rolling forecast differs from a static budget

The budget stays fixed: it is the yardstick. The rolling forecast replaces closed months with actuals and re-runs everything after them. This template re-bases on the last actual month: March revenue of $47,000 becomes the new MRR, so April is forecast at $47,000 × 0.99 + $4,000 = $50,530 instead of the budgeted $54,185. Payroll and other costs stay as budgeted and COGS follows the lower revenue. The forecast also keeps looking 12 months past the last close, so after March it runs to Mar 2028.

The full-year outlook then reads: revenue $713,187 against $750,757 budgeted (−$37,570), ARR at December $930,341 instead of $970,817, and year-end cash $272,150, $36,456 short of the budget. Runway at December drops from 10.5 to 8.5 months (year-end cash ÷ a forecast December burn of $31,977). Three months of small misses become a two-month cut in runway, which is exactly what a rolling forecast is for: you see it in April, not in December. The annual operating plan guide covers how the plan and the forecast work together through the year.

Download the Excel version

The Excel template has the same defaults and the same math as live formulas: a Budget sheet with the drivers, headcount and cost lines and the 12-month table, and an Actuals sheet where you enter each month's revenue and spend to get variance and the rolling forecast. No email needed. When you outgrow one year and a handful of lines, a full SaaS financial model adds the longer horizon, and the headcount planning guide helps you time the hires that drive most of this budget.