Waterfall Plume: 9 how-to guides (budget, subtotals, PVM…)

These recipes start from a Waterfall Plume chart that is already set up. If that's not the case, begin with getting started: the examples reuse its Result table and Total amount measure. Features marked ★ are premium: they work without a license, with a watermark.

How do I start from an opening balance (cash flow)?

You want to show how cash goes from the opening balance to the closing balance, and check that the flows explain the whole change.

1. Create the opening and closing balance measures (typed in here; in a real model, read from a balance table):

// Balance on the first day of the period
Opening cash = 12000
// Measured balance on the last day (bank statement)
Closing cash = 15000

2. Drag the column of cash flow items to Category (or Product) and the flow measure to Values (amount).
3. Drag Opening cash to Start value, and Closing cash to End value (check).

Result: the waterfall starts from the opening balance, each flow goes up or down, and the end bar shows the measured balance. If the flows do not explain everything, a Gap bar appears right before the end: it is the amount to track down. Rename it in Format › Waterfall › Start, subtotals and total › Label of the gap to the end value.

How do I build a budget-to-actual bridge by region?

You want to explain the difference between budget and actual: which regions did better, which did worse.

1. Create both measures (the Budget table is related to the same regions table as Sales):

Revenue = SUM ( Sales[Amount] )
Revenue budget = SUM ( Budget[Amount] )

2. Drag Region to Category (or Product), Revenue to Values (amount) and Revenue budget to Reference value (budget, last year…).
3. In Format › Waterfall › Steps, set Step order to Largest changes first.

Result: the waterfall starts from the total budget, each region goes up or down by its variance to budget, and it ends at actual revenue. A region's tooltip says "Difference between Revenue and Revenue budget.". The same setup gives a last-year-to-this-year bridge with a last-year measure as the reference.

How do I see the year-over-year change by channel?

You want to know which sales channels explain the revenue increase or decrease from one year to the next, as with Power BI's waterfall chart.

1. Drag Year to Category (or Product), Channel to Breakdown and Revenue to Values (amount).
2. To compare only the last two years, set Format › Waterfall › Steps › Totals compared to The previous and the last.
3. To see more channels, increase Maximum breakdowns (5 by default, like Power BI).

Result: one bar per year, and between two years, the change of each channel (the 5 largest, then "Others (n)"). Clicking a year filters the page on that year; clicking a channel, on that channel.

How do I add "Gross margin" and "EBITDA" subtotals? ★

In an income statement, you want to read the intermediate balances without adding them to your data.

1. In Format › Waterfall › Start, subtotals and total, type in Subtotals ★: Cost of sales = Gross margin; Marketing = EBITDA.

Result: a "Gross margin" bar (600) after cost of sales and an "EBITDA" bar (210) after marketing, in the Data colors › Subtotals (empty = total) color. A misspelled step name is flagged in red, in edit mode only: "Subtotals not found (unknown step name): …". If your table already has a "Gross margin" row, just type Gross margin: that row becomes a subtotal (the running total replaces its value).

How do I show horizontal bars? ★

With long step names or some twenty accounts, horizontal bars read better than columns.

1. In Format › Bars, set Orientation to Bars (horizontal) ★.

Result: the steps read from top to bottom, the total at the bottom, and long names stay whole. This also works for the price-volume-mix bridge.

How do I group small steps? ★

With fifty products or accounts, small steps become unreadable: keep the largest ones and group the rest.

1. In Format › Waterfall › Steps, set Group small steps to Keep the N largest ★.
2. Type 6 in Steps kept. For a threshold rather than a number, choose Below a % of the total ★ and set Threshold (% of changes).

Result: the 6 largest steps, then "Others (n)"; the total does not change. The tooltip of "Others" gives the sum of the grouped steps, and clicking "Others" filters the page on the grouped categories. This setting applies to a simple waterfall, a budget-to-actual bridge and a waterfall of measures.

How do I explain a revenue change by price, volume and mix?

Your revenue changed between two periods; three reasons combine. Example of a shop (candles and vases):

	2024	2025
Candles	100 × $10 = $1,000	90 × $11 = $990
Vases	50 × $30 = $1,500	90 × $28 = $2,520
Total	150 items, $2,500	180 items, $3,510

• Volume: +$500. 20% more items, at 2024 prices and 2024 split.
• Mix: +$600. The (expensive) vase goes from a third to half of the items.
• Price: −$90. Candle +$1 (90 sold), vase −$2 (90 sold).

500 + 600 − 90 = $1,010: the effects add up exactly to the change. On top come new products, discontinued products and other changes (rows without a usable quantity: services, discounts, net returns).

Data: a Sales table (Product, Year, Quantity, Amount) and two measures:

Revenue = SUM ( Sales[Amount] )
Items sold = SUM ( Sales[Quantity] )

1. Drag Product to Category (or Product), Year to Period (comparison), Items sold to Quantity (price-volume-mix) and Revenue to Values (amount).
2. The bridge appears by itself (Format › Waterfall › Chart type = Automatic (from the fields)): 2024, volume, mix, price, new, discontinued, other changes, 2025; the summary strip gives revenue, quantities and average price.
3. Hover a bar: a sentence explains the effect, with its main contributor.
4. Click a bar ★: the breakdown of the effect by product opens next to the bridge. Clicking the bar again, or the × button, closes it.

Without a Period field, put Items sold LY in Reference quantity (price-volume-mix) and Revenue LY in Reference value (budget, last year…) (for example CALCULATE ( [Revenue], SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR ( 'Date'[Date] ) )). The level of the Product field decides what is "price" and what is "mix": at too aggregated a level, a shift toward expensive items becomes a price effect.

How do I analyze costs or purchases?

For costs, a decrease is good news: the colors should say so.

1. In Format › Data colors, turn on A decrease is favorable (costs).

Result: decreases are shown in green, increases in red; the ▲▼ arrows keep the real direction. Valid for the waterfall and the price-volume-mix bridge (supplier prices versus purchased quantities).

How do I avoid the watermark without a license?

Without a key, a ★ feature works, but shows a badge in edit mode and the "Plume Visuals · Premium preview" watermark over the visual in reading mode.

Everything that matches the native chart, plus the start, end, total, order and connector settings, is free. The watermark only appears with Subtotals ★, Subtotal after each category ★, Group small steps (only when it actually groups steps), Bars (horizontal) ★, and in the price-volume-mix bridge with the Breakdown by product ★ (opened on click) or Product (change of each product) ★ in Break down by. Turn off Format › Breakdown by product ★ › Open on bar click to never offer it.

Learn more

• Getting started with Waterfall Plume: the data to prepare and a first visual, step by step.
• Waterfall Plume fields and settings: every field well and every setting.
• Getting started with Plume visuals: installation, license, styles and shared settings.
• The visual's page: Waterfall Plume. A question? Support.