The question: where does the difference between plan and fact come from? Variance reaches a work order from two directions, and this module reads both:
- From buying. The Cost Variance report (Products → Reports, §6.10) holds each product's standard against what stock actually carries and what purchasing actually paid. Components bought above standard arrive on the floor already carrying a difference no factory discipline can remove.
- From making. Each order's own variance is settled at its close (§10.5): materials issued at their real cost, against output booked at standard, with the remainder posted to the manufacturing variance account. Read it per order through the order's GL Postings (§10.7), and in aggregate on the cockpit's Variance tile and the governed measures (§2.9) — remembering that on open orders the figure still contains WIP.
And the honest gap, stated once here as in Chapter 2: there is no labour variance, because the work order captures no labour or machine hours. The variance in this chapter is a materials variance, and it calls itself nothing grander.