The second deliverable in the Meridian Time Group controlling cycle, after the Master Budget Model. It answers a different question. The Budget Model says what the business decided to plan for FY2026. This model says what the actual numbers, six months into the year, suggest will happen if nothing changes between now and December.
The Budget Model is built once a year from stakeholder inputs: unit, price, and cost assumptions set by judgment before the year starts. This model is built the opposite way. It is computed automatically from a single growth-rate engine applied to actuals against that same budget, at full Channel x Collection x Country x Month grain, with no qualitative input in the calculation itself. The two models are built to deliberately different patterns, input-driven and computational, so they demonstrate distinct, complementary skills rather than the same skill twice.
Two lenses, one business
What did the business decide to plan for. Built once a year from stakeholder inputs: unit, price, and cost assumptions, judgment calls about new stores, channel mix, and pricing. Manual by nature, and meant to be.
What do the actual numbers say will happen if nothing changes. Computed automatically from year-to-date actuals against the same budget, at full Channel x Collection x Country x Month grain.
How to read it
Blue = manual input (the six fixed expense coefficients on the Income Statement, nowhere else in the workbook). Black = calculated cell. Green = formula that pulls from another tab, always Model_Calculations.
Blue
Manual input
The six expense coefficients on the Income Statement. Nowhere else in the workbook.
Black
Calculated cell
Formula driven entirely by the data on its own tab.
Green
Cross-sheet link
Formula that pulls from another tab, always Model_Calculations.
Click a tab below to see what it contains.
Tab 1
The forecast engine, and the only tab in the workbook where a number is actually derived rather than looked up. One row per Channel x Collection x Country x Month, 13,440 rows in total: 2 channel types by 2 channel modes by 10 collections by up to 32 countries by 12 months.
For every row, a growth rate is computed independently for Units, COGS, and Revenue: year-to-date Actuals divided by year-to-date Budget, minus 1. Where Budget is 0 for that cut, growth defaults to 0 rather than erroring out or sitting blank. Forecast then equals the Actual, for the six months already closed, or Budget multiplied by (1 plus Growth), for the six months still open.
This is a control mechanism, not a modeling exercise. No assumption is set here and no target is chosen. Each row just carries forward what the year has actually done so far.
| Channel | Collection | Country | Month | 2026 Budget | YTD Growth | 2026 Forecast |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boutique / Online | Atelier | Australia | Mar | 99,268 | closed, actual | 33,953 |
| Boutique / Online | Atelier | Australia | Jul | 108,224 | -38.6% | 66,477 |
| Wholesale / Online | Atelier | Australia | Jul | 126,431 | +19.0% | 150,429 |
| Wholesale / Online | Celeste | Italy | Jul | 36,142 | +18.6% | 42,874 |
| Wholesale / Online | Aventus | Thailand | Jul | 0 | budget is 0, growth = 0 | 0 |
Same collection, same country, two different channel cuts, two different growth rates: Atelier is running behind budget through the Boutique channel in Australia and ahead of it through Wholesale in the same market, in the same month.
13,440 rows total. Growth is computed once per Channel x Collection x Country combination from the twelve months of budget and actuals, then applied to whichever months are still open; closed months simply carry the actual.
Tab 2
The tab has two halves. The left half is Power Query output straight from the database: Actuals and Budget, as pivoted from the Meridian database, refreshable on its own whenever new actuals land. The right half is the forecast, pulled from Model_Calculations by SUMIFS. If Model_Calculations changes, this half changes with it.
| Month | 2025 Actuals | 2026 Actuals | 2026 Budget | 2026 Forecast |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 63,896,491 | 70,958,559 | 82,382,445 | 70,958,559 |
| Feb | 61,428,994 | 67,748,869 | 81,554,153 | 67,748,869 |
| Mar | 76,771,853 | 84,591,120 | 83,697,668 | 84,591,120 |
| Apr | 71,107,882 | 77,673,877 | 83,185,402 | 77,673,877 |
| May | 75,443,430 | 82,028,726 | 86,045,416 | 82,028,726 |
| Jun | 72,981,103 | 79,707,905 | 86,001,317 | 79,707,905 |
| Jul | 72,015,413 | not yet closed | 84,448,323 | 77,974,403 |
| Aug | 69,657,165 | not yet closed | 85,293,961 | 78,835,367 |
| Dec | 123,757,277 | not yet closed | 97,072,592 | 90,380,849 |
Total Net Revenue shown; the same left-side/right-side structure runs for Units and COGS, and for every Channel, Collection, Region, and Country cut, not just the monthly topline shown here. Sep, Oct, and Nov omitted for space.
Tab 3
Budget vs. Forecast Revenue, cut by channel, mode, region, and country, with variance, margin impact, and mix shown side by side. Every figure is a lookup against Model_Calculations, filtered by category; nothing is recalculated on this tab. Forecast_In-Depth View covers the same categories with a wider set of metrics; this tab shows Revenue only.
Topline Revenue
Retail / Online
Regional split
Figures are 2026 Forecast Revenue against 2026 Budget Revenue, current as of the Jun refresh. Every region and both channels are running below budget in the same -5% to -11% band. Nothing here is concentrated in one part of the business.
Tab 4
Same categories as Forecast_Key Figures: channel, collection, region, country. Every metric is shown at once: LY, Actuals, Budget, and Forecast, across Units, COGS, and Revenue, each with its own variance against LY, Actuals, and Budget. Every figure is a lookup against Model_Calculations, filtered by category.
| Collection | Units vs Budget | Revenue vs Budget |
|---|---|---|
| Heritage | -2.4% | -2.5% |
| Grand Complication | -6.5% | -4.5% |
| Aventus | -7.4% | -7.4% |
| Atelier | -9.0% | -8.3% |
| Terra | -8.2% | -8.4% |
| Sportivo | -9.5% | -8.7% |
| Meridian Classic | -9.5% | -8.6% |
| Celeste | -9.7% | -8.8% |
| Lumina | -11.6% | -10.1% |
| Nautique | -11.9% | -11.8% |
All ten collections are forecast below budget. Heritage is the most resilient by some margin; Nautique and Lumina are the weakest.
Collection view shown; the same LY / Actuals / Budget / Forecast structure runs by channel, mode, region, and all 32 countries, including the Brazil cut called out in the Controller's Note above.
Tab 5
Revenue and COGS carried down to Net Income. Revenue and COGS are fully computed, straight from the growth rates in Model_Calculations. Below Gross Profit, Operating Expenses, Interest, and Corporate Tax run on the six fixed coefficients of Revenue described in the legend above, because this model does not track headcount, lease terms, or financing detail as separate inputs. There is nothing to computationally derive an expense ratio from, so those six lines are held constant rather than invented. That is a stated scope boundary of this build, not an inconsistency in the logic above it.
| Line | 2026 Budget | 2026 Forecast | Var % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boutique Revenue | 279,632,185 | 254,402,196 | -9.0% |
| Wholesale Revenue | 764,679,976 | 711,563,590 | -6.9% |
| Total Net Revenue | 1,044,312,161 | 965,965,786 | -7.5% |
| Boutique COGS | 96,280,930 | 62,558,959 | -35.0% |
| Wholesale COGS | 249,571,061 | 264,066,180 | +5.8% |
| Total COGS | 345,851,990 | 326,625,139 | -5.6% |
| Gross Profit | 698,460,171 | 639,340,647 | -8.5% |
| Gross Margin % | 66.9% | 66.2% | -0.7pp |
| Amortisation & Depreciation | -52,215,608 | -48,298,289 | -7.5% |
| Marketing | -104,431,216 | -96,596,579 | -7.5% |
| General & Administrative | -52,215,608 | -38,638,631 | -26.0% |
| Salaries & Benefits | -208,862,432 | -173,873,841 | -16.8% |
| Operating Result | 280,735,306 | 281,933,306 | +0.4% |
| Operating Margin % | 26.9% | 29.2% | +2.3pp |
| Net Interest Expense | -25,266,178 | -28,193,331 | +11.6% |
| Corporate Tax | -76,500,371 | -70,483,327 | -7.9% |
| Net Income | 178,968,758 | 183,256,649 | +2.4% |
| Net Income Margin % | 17.1% | 19.0% | +1.8pp |
Gross Profit is down 8.5% against budget, but Net Income is fractionally up, because the fixed expense coefficients scale down with the lower forecast revenue faster than the softer topline itself.
Annual view shown. The workbook also carries the same comparison split by quarter and by month.
Source file
The full workbook behind everything above, all six tabs, live formulas included. Download it directly.
Six months of actuals against the FY2026 budget point to full-year revenue of roughly CHF 966m against a CHF 1.04bn budget, a 7.5% shortfall that also costs about 70 basis points of gross margin (66.9% budgeted, 66.2% forecast). The softness is broad-based, not a single weak market: every region is running below budget (EMEA -7.7%, APAC -7.5%, NA -5.4%, LATAM -11.0%), and both channels are down (Wholesale -8.1%, Boutique -5.7%).
The one concentrated outlier worth a closer look is Brazil, tracking about 22% below its roughly CHF 40m budget on current trend, a materially sharper pullback than anywhere else in the portfolio. None of this is visible in the Budget Model itself.