What is a positive or negative variance of a budget?
A variance is the difference between the projected budget and
the actual performance for a particular account. A negative
variance means that the budgeted amount was greater than the actual
amount spent. A positive variance means that the budgeted amount
was less than the actual amount spent.
Note there is some debate over whether a negative variance means
an underrun or an overrun. The Project Management Institute,
however, endorses the accepted convention that a negative variance
is a bad thing, and a positive variance a good thing.