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Axion
Budget planning & forecasting

Enterprise budget math. Without the spreadsheet.

Set one group-level budget. Auto-distribute across rooftops and departments. Reconcile nightly against Google Ads, Meta, and vendor invoices. Let AI flag variance before it becomes a bad month.

Group → rooftop auto-allocation Nightly spend reconciliation AI variance forecasting 3–5 year planning
5
layers of hierarchy: group → region → rooftop → department → campaign
10%
default variance threshold before alerts fire (configurable per line)
Daily
spend reconciliation cadence against Google Ads and Meta
3-5yr
strategic planning horizon with scenario branches
Why this module exists

Dealer groups don't lose money on bad plans. They lose it on bad visibility.

By the time a spreadsheet-based budget review catches a 12% overspend at a single rooftop, the money is gone. Axion keeps every budget line reconciled daily, alerts the owner at the exact moment the number breaks, and uses AI to forecast where the month lands before the month ends.

Hierarchy

Set one number at the top.
Let it flow where it belongs.

Enter the group's annual target once. Axion distributes it to rooftops by percentage, fixed dollar amount, or a formula (inventory value, prior-year revenue, market share target). Rooftops split into departments. Departments split into campaigns. Every level is editable, and every override rolls up cleanly.

  • Allocation: percent, fixed, or formula (market share, inventory value, etc.)
  • Override at any level — rooftops can request exceptions with a workflow
  • Top-down or bottom-up planning — start with the group or aggregate from rooftops
  • Consolidated view: one screen to see planned, actual, and variance at every layer
See hierarchical budgeting →
FY 2026 · Q2
Group allocation
$2.14M planned
Toyota of Austin28% · $599K
Ford of Round Rock22% · $471K
Hyundai South Austin18% · $385K
Mazda North Austin14% · $300K
Kia Cedar Park10% · $214K
Honda Pflugerville8% · $171K
AI forecast: 94% confidence Q2 finishes within 4.2% of plan.
Capabilities

Everything a finance team needs. Everything marketing can actually use.

Hierarchical budgets

Group budget distributes to rooftops by percent, fixed amount, or formula. Each rooftop splits across departments (new, used, service, F&I, fixed ops) and down to campaigns.

Real-time reconciliation

Google Ads and Meta spend syncs nightly. Offline vendor invoices flow in via email import or upload. Planned vs. actual reflects within 24 hours, not the next month's review.

AI forecasting

Three scenarios — conservative, base, aggressive — each with a confidence interval. The model learns your group's seasonality, inventory mix, and historic variance patterns.

Variance alerts

Configurable thresholds by line item. Alerts route to the owner — GM, marketing director, agency lead — not a shared inbox no one reads.

Multi-period planning

Monthly, quarterly, or annual plans. Roll up multiple periods for a year-in-review, or roll forward last year's plan as next year's starting template.

Department-level ROI

ROI is calculated per department, not just overall. Service marketing gets judged on ROs, sales on units delivered, BDC on appointments set. One source of truth for each.

Live reconciliation

Planned vs. actual, reconciled every night.

Google Ads and Meta spend syncs via OAuth nightly — no manual exports, no copy-paste. Offline vendors (direct mail, radio, print, sponsorships) flow in via email-parsed invoices, CSV upload, or API. Every dollar lands in the right bucket, and variance updates automatically.

  • Google Ads + Meta spend: auto-sync nightly, mapped to the right budget line
  • Offline invoices: email parsing, CSV upload, or API from your vendor
  • Reconciliation engine de-duplicates, handles refunds, and reconciles splits
  • Every transaction is auditable — drill from variance → line item → source invoice
April — month to date
Toyota of Austin · New digital
Pace +8.4%
Planned
$48,200
Actual
$52,260
Google Ads
Meta Ads
Display (programmatic)
Direct mail
Alert sent 2h ago: Display pace is 18% over plan — likely to finish month at $53.6K vs. $48.2K target. Owner: Maya Chen.
How it works

From blank template to alert-driven budget in a week.

  1. 01

    Import your existing plan

    Upload your spreadsheet or type in last year's numbers. Axion normalizes across rooftops and departments.

  2. 02

    Connect Google Ads & Meta

    OAuth into each account once. Spend syncs nightly, mapped automatically to the right budget line.

  3. 03

    Set the group-level target

    Annual or quarterly. Choose allocation logic: percent, fixed, formula. Rooftops and departments inherit automatically.

  4. 04

    Add your KPIs

    Leads, appointments, units, gross, COS. Daily or weekly cadence. Pull from GA4 or enter manually — Axion handles both.

  5. 05

    Let alerts do the work

    Set variance thresholds per line. Alerts fire to the owner when pace breaks. AI forecasts month-end variance in real time.

  6. 06

    Review, template, repeat

    At month-end, the variance report writes itself. Save the plan as a template for next period. Iterate, don't start over.

Forecasting

Know where the month lands before the month ends.

Axion's forecasting model uses your historical pace, seasonality, inventory mix, and in-flight campaigns to project where every budget line finishes. Three scenarios, a confidence interval on each, and a recommended action when the base case is off track.

  • Three scenarios: conservative, base, aggressive — with confidence intervals
  • Recommendations: shift budget, pause a campaign, accelerate a channel
  • Seasonality-aware: model knows Labor Day, year-end clearance, OEM push months
  • Works for 30 days out or 3 years — same engine, different horizon
Q2 2026 forecast
Group digital spend
Conservative (70%)$2.02M
Base (90%)$2.14M
Aggressive (50%)$2.31M
Recommendation: Shift $14K from Google Display to Meta Advantage+ at Toyota of Austin. Expected: close variance gap to 2.1%, lift leads 9%.
FAQ

Frequently asked questions

How do budgets flow from the group level to individual rooftops?
You set an annual or quarterly number at the group level, then allocate to rooftops by percentage, dollar amount, or a weighted formula (e.g. percent of inventory value, prior-year revenue). Each rooftop inherits a budget with department splits. Changes at the top push down; rooftops can request exceptions.
Does Axion replace my agency's spend tracking spreadsheet?
Yes. Axion pulls spend nightly from Google Ads and Meta via OAuth, and accepts invoices from offline vendors (direct mail, radio, print, sponsorships). Planned vs. actual is live at every level — campaign, department, rooftop, group.
How is variance calculated and alerted?
We track planned vs. actual daily. When any budget line breaches its threshold (default 10%, configurable), the owner gets an in-app notification and an email. AI forecasts month-end variance by extrapolating the current pace against the plan.
Can we do multi-year planning?
Yes. Axion supports 3–5 year strategic plans with YoY analysis, scenario branches (conservative / base / aggressive), and confidence intervals on each scenario. Useful for capital planning and OEM co-op negotiations.
Do budget templates work across fiscal years?
Yes. Save any budget (or slice of one) as a template. Clone it forward to next fiscal year with pricing adjustments, reallocate to new departments, or apply as a starting point for a new rooftop acquisition.
How do KPIs get into the system?
Three ways: daily auto-pull from Google Analytics 4 and ad platforms; CSV/Excel import with column mapping; or manual daily/weekly entry by a rooftop GM. Axion uses whichever is available and flags gaps.
Live demo

See budget planning on your rooftops.

We'll import your current spreadsheet, connect one rooftop's Google Ads and Meta accounts, and show your real variance on a live dashboard in the meeting.