Retail – Price and Volume Variance

What is a Sales, Price and Volume Dashboard? Sales Dashboards for retail companies are considered operational analysis tools and are used by sales and product managers analyze important retail metrics. Some of the main functionality in this type of dashboard is that it gives the user KPIs that cover five different areas: 1) Price and volume variance, 2) Contribution margin, 3) Sales mix variance, 4) Sales per employee, and 5) sales per sales area. The bottom of the screen provides convenient definitions with details about calculations. You find an example of this type of dashboard below.

Purpose of Sales Analysis Dashboards Retail organizations use Sales Analysis Dashboards to give managers essential insight to metrics that drive revenues. When used as part of good business practices in a Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) department, an organization can improve and speed up its store sales and related strategies, and it can reduce the chances that low performing retail stores are not getting timely attention.

Who Uses This Type of Dashboard? The typical users of this type of dashboard are: CFOs, analysts, regional managers, store managers, product managers. Other Reports Often Used in Conjunction with Sales Analysis Dashboards Progressive Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) departments sometimes use several different Sales Analysis Dashboards, along with financial dashboards, profit & loss reports, sales reports, sales forecast, annual budgets and other management and control tools.

Where Does the Data for Analysis Originate From? The Actual (historical transactions) data typically comes from enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems like: Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (D365 BC), Microsoft Dynamics AX, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics SL, Sage Intacct, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage X3, SAP Business One, SAP ByDesign, Acumatica, Netsuite and others. In analyses where budgets or forecasts are used, the planning data most often originates from in-house Excel spreadsheet models or from professional xFP&A solutions.

Built for retail finance teams and aligned with Solver's xFP&A platform, this Solver report template connects directly to your ERP data via the Solver Data Warehouse, enabling near real-time analysis with minimal setup. Designed for QuickStart deployment, it can be activated rapidly so your team can focus on analysis and decisions — not data preparation.

What is the Retail – Price and Volume Variance in Solver? The Retail – Price and Volume Variance is a pre-built xFP&A report template in Solver designed for retail organizations. It delivers key financial and operational metrics in a single, easy-to-use interface — purpose-built for retail finance workflows.

Who uses this Solver report template? Cfos, fp&a managers, and retail finance teams in retail organizations rely on this Solver report template to replace manual spreadsheet-based processes with automated, near real-time analysis. It is especially useful during month-end close, budget cycles, and board reporting.

Where does the data come from? Data is sourced automatically from your ERP system through the Solver Data Warehouse, which integrates with platforms such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Dynamics 365 Finance, Acumatica, Sage Intacct, and other leading ERP solutions. Once connected, the template updates in near real-time with no manual data entry required.

To learn more, visit the Resource Library.