What it does
Submit your packaging budget vs actuals (by format or category). The Budget Variance Explainer decomposes each variance into market-driven (index movement) vs supplier-driven (above-index pricing) components — with PackIndex data as the reference. Output is a board-ready variance table with narrative.
Example use case
A finance director has a £340,000 adverse packaging variance for Q1. The explainer attributes £220,000 to market-driven OCC and energy price increases (verifiable against PackIndex), and £120,000 to supplier-driven above-index pricing — triggering a renegotiation action on three suppliers.
Frequently asked questions
What input format do I need?
Budget vs actual table by packaging category or format. SKU level or category level both work.
Does this require PackIndex subscription data?
No — the agent uses publicly available PackIndex benchmark data to attribute variances.
Can I export the output?
Yes — board-ready table with variance attribution, exportable as text or paste into Excel.
Related searches
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Run Budget Variance Explainer on PACKIQ
5 credits per run · Grounded in live PackIndex data · Result in under 2 minutes
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