Variance
The gap between budgeted and actual. Finance asks you to 'explain the variance' monthly — a ritual in which last quarter's estimates confront reality, and reality declines to apologize.
Heard in the wild
“There's a $40K unfavorable variance in maintenance — the boiler emergency.”
Tone check: Technical
Keep receipts on every overage as it happens. Variance explanations written from memory read like alibis.