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Find Spending Variance Drivers by Department
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Find Spending Variance Drivers by Department

HardSQL · PostgreSQL

Problem

You are given monthly spending data for several departments across two fiscal years. Write a PostgreSQL query that identifies the departments responsible for the largest increase in spending in the latest month compared with the prior month, and show each department’s variance contribution alongside the total variance across all departments.

Return only departments with a positive variance contribution, ranked from largest to smallest contribution. Use the latest month present in the data as the comparison point.

Schema

department_spend
ColumnTypeDescription
spend_idPKINTPrimary key for each spend record
department_idINTDepartment identifier
spend_monthDATEFirst day of the spend month
actual_spendDECIMAL(12,2)Actual spend for the month
budget_spendDECIMAL(12,2)Budgeted spend for the month
departments
ColumnTypeDescription
department_idPKINTPrimary key for department metadata
department_nameVARCHAR(100)Department name
division_nameVARCHAR(100)Division name
Tablesdepartment_spenddepartments
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CodePostgreSQL
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