Variance analysis, in budgeting or management accounting, is a tool of budgetary control by evaluation of performance by means of variances between budgeted amount, planned amount or standard amount and the actual amount incurred/sold. Variance analysis can be carried out for both costs and revenues. Variance analysis is usually associated with a product costs. In this setting, variance analysis attempts to identify the causes of the differences between 1) standard costs of the inputs that should have occurred for the actual products it manufactured, and 2) the actual costs of the inputs used for the actual products manufactured.