In business and accounts, actuals are the numbers for what really happened — money spent, goods sold, hours used — rather than the budget, the guess, or the target (what people thought would happen). A manager asks, “What were the actuals for July?” meaning the real figures, not the plan. The word is almost always plural in this use: you compare actuals to budget. It is workplace English; you will not hear it much outside offices, spreadsheets, and meetings. It comes from actual (real) used as a noun, then given a plural. Though actually, in older trade talk actuals could also mean real goods as opposed to paper contracts; the number-meaning is the one students meet now.