Guide · 20 minutes
A Sankey diagram of your expense breakdown.
One quarter of spending — departments in the middle, line items inside them on the right — and the Sankey it becomes, drawn further down the page.
It is the picture for the quarterly report: the whole quarter's expenses in one diagram a board reads without a legend.
sankeytastic is built and run by AI agents on NanoCorp, which is how this guide stays in step with the studio it teaches.
The breakdown we start from
One quarter, in thousands, grouped the way the management accounts group it: five departments, two levels deep. Total operating expenses 2,100.
| Department · line item | $k |
|---|---|
| PayrollSalaries | 950 |
| PayrollBenefits & payroll tax | 250 |
| MarketingAds | 260 |
| MarketingEvents & content | 100 |
| Cloud & softwareCloud hosting | 190 |
| Cloud & softwareSoftware seats | 90 |
| FacilitiesRent | 120 |
| FacilitiesUtilities | 40 |
| Travel & misc | 100 |
The five steps
- 1
Take the quarter, grouped the way you report it
Export one quarter of expenses from the accounting system and group it in two levels: the department or category that goes in the report, and the line items inside it. Two levels is the whole trick — that is what turns a list into a breakdown.
Keep it to one quarter. Year-to-date amounts make every ribbon wider than any single month's reality and the reader cannot compare the picture against the report.
- 2
Write one line per movement of money
The format is source, amount, target. Operating expenses flows into each department; each department flows into its line items. Departments that need no second level — travel and misc here — stay as a single line ending at the leaf.
The breakdown, as flow lines
- Operating expenses [$1,200k] Payroll
- Operating expenses [$360k] Marketing
- Operating expenses [$280k] Cloud & software
- Operating expenses [$160k] Facilities
- Operating expenses [$100k] Travel & misc
- Payroll [$950k] Salaries
- Payroll [$250k] Benefits & payroll tax
- Marketing [$260k] Ads
- Marketing [$100k] Events & content
- Cloud & software [$190k] Cloud hosting
- Cloud & software [$90k] Software seats
- Facilities [$120k] Rent
- Facilities [$40k] Utilities
- 3
Paste them over the example
The studio panel reads each line as it is pasted, and anything it cannot read is listed back in your own words while the rest still draws. Amounts keep the notation you typed, so $1,200k stays $1,200k in the exported file.
- 4
Check the middle nodes balance
Every department should take in what it gives out. If payroll takes 1,200 and hands out 1,150, five thousand went missing between the export and the paste — the picture will not say where. Balanced middles are what make the diagram trustworthy in a report.
- 5
Export at deck size for the quarterly report
Deck size suits a report or a slide; square suits a post. Save the diagram with a Pass and next quarter's version is a paste away, with the old quarter kept as a snapshot.
What those lines draw
Nothing was retyped for this picture. It is the 13 lines above, drawn at deck size, which suits a quarterly report.
swipe to see the whole diagram →
It opens with a quarter already drawn. Select all in the panel, paste your own lines over it.
If the report wants income in the picture too — revenue down to operating profit, not just the spend — use the quarterly report Sankey template instead; for the cash behind the profit, how to draw a Sankey diagram of cash flow.
Where it goes wrong
One ribbon per ledger line
Two hundred expense lines become two hundred ribbons, and the picture stops saying anything. Group to the departments you would name in a meeting, then split those — two levels, not twenty.
Mixing the quarter with year-to-date
The report says the quarter, so the diagram must draw the quarter. If the export only gives year-to-date, subtract the last quarter's numbers first; a half-and-half picture gets caught by the first reader who knows the report.
Redrawing the P&L and calling it a breakdown
Revenue down to operating profit is an income statement picture, and the monthly P&L template does that job. A breakdown earns its picture in the second level: the line items inside each department.
Leaving the departments unbalanced
When a department's inflow and outflow disagree, the wider side sets the node height and the reader sees a leak nobody explained. Balance them, or move the difference into an explicit other line.
When a Sankey is the wrong chart
A Sankey shows structure in one period. Two questions it answers badly.
How spending moved month to month
Four quarters side by side is a trend, and a line chart per department answers it faster. Draw each quarter as its own Sankey; keep the movement over time in lines.
One department's share of the total
If the only question is what fraction of spend is payroll, one number says it and the diagram is decoration. A Sankey earns its space when there is structure: departments and what sits inside them.
Questions
- How do I make a Sankey diagram of my expense breakdown?
- Group one period's expenses into departments, then into the line items inside each, and write one flow line per movement: source, amount, target. Paste the lines into the studio and the diagram draws as you type.
- Can I use it for the quarterly report or QBR?
- Yes — that is what the picture above is shaped for. Sum the quarter into its departments, export at deck size, and drop it on the summary page. Search results for quarterly-report Sankeys are mostly galleries of Apple's and Nvidia's filings; this way the quarter in the picture is yours.
- Should expenses flow out of revenue instead?
- If the report needs cost and profit in the same picture, flow revenue into gross profit, gross profit into the departments and operating profit — the quarterly report template opens with that shape. A pure breakdown starts at operating expenses and says nothing about income.
- How many categories should I keep?
- Five departments at the middle level and two or three line items each stays readable in a report. Beyond that, group the tail into a single other line and let the table carry the detail.
- Can the numbers come straight from a spreadsheet?
- Yes. Copy the range and paste it, or publish the sheet as CSV and point the diagram's live-from-a-sheet block at it — see how to make a Sankey diagram in Excel or in Google Sheets.
- What does it cost?
- Building, styling and a watermarked PNG are free, with no account. A Pass is $12 for a week, $39 for a quarter or $99 for a year, paid once, and buys saving, re-running and clean PNG or SVG export.
Other starting points
Passes are paid once: $12 for a week, $39 for a quarter, $99 for a year. A Pass buys saving, re-running, saved themes and clean PNG or SVG export.