EBITDA bridge: plan to actual and forecast
Plan EBITDA to actual, bar by bar.
By Surojit Chakraverti, founder of L3VLUP and an investor running a long-short healthcare and technology equities strategy.
On this subject: ebitda bridge: plan to actual and forecast.Updated 4 November 2026
What it does
The page of a monthly pack a board reads first. It starts at plan EBITDA and adds each variance as a bar, price, volume, mix, unit cost, heads, cost per head and non-pay, to arrive at actual EBITDA for the year to date or forecast EBITDA for the full year. Built from the variance schedules rather than typed, it ends exactly at the EBITDA the forecast reports, and a check row says so. Every bar carries the same sign convention, favourable positive, so the bars add.
Where it lives
The same schedule in each model that carries it, with the rows to open. Open a model in the browser, go to the sheet, and click the lines.
- Bridge, rows 6–16: Plan EBITDA, Price, Volume, Mix…
- Bridge, rows 19–22: EBITDA variance, EBITDA variance, % of plan, Revenue variance, Operating cost variance
What a reviewer looks for
- A bridge with a balancing bar called "other", which is a variance nobody explained.
- Revenue variances in the bridge instead of margin variances, so volume is counted at price rather than at margin.
- Bars with mixed signs, so the end of the bridge does not reach the forecast.
Learn it, then build it
Read · Guide · 11 min
Financial Modelling Best Practices: The Conventions That Make a Model Auditable
Vocabulary: EBITDA, Price-Volume-Mix Analysis.