Cost tracking
A job can look on budget for months while the money is already spent in everything but name. Signed subcontracts and orders are promises that no invoice shows yet, and a budget read from invoices alone is always behind. Committed cost is the figure that closes the gap. This page explains the term, sets it beside invoiced, actual and paid cost, and shows how Fidrel enters a commitment, moves it as invoices arrive and warns when it passes the budget.
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A subcontract signed in March does not appear in the numbers until the first invoice in May. For two months the line looks untouched while the whole amount is spoken for, and a new decision gets made against a budget that is already gone.
People use “committed,” “spent,” “actual” and “paid” as if they were one number. They are four, and a report that does not say which one it shows will be argued over in every owner meeting.
The contract sits in a folder, the invoice in an inbox, the budget in a spreadsheet. Matching the three by hand is slow, and a contract that is never matched keeps showing as uninvoiced long after it was paid.
Fidrel keeps the four apart and defines each one on the page. Committed is active and closed contracts plus recorded orders, and each contract counts once. Open commitments are the commitments not yet invoiced. Invoiced is checked vendor invoices that have not been rejected. Actual cost is the approved part of what has been invoiced. Paid is recorded payments, excluding sales tax. A figure moves in that order, from the promise to the bill to the approved bill to the payment, and the cost report’s definitions panel, How the figures are calculated, spells each one out.
Cost tracking
The estimate at completion is the invoiced amount plus what remains under the forecast or the commitments. Where nobody has entered a remaining forecast for a budget item, Fidrel uses the highest of the item’s current budget, its committed amount and its invoiced amount. A signed commitment above the budget therefore shows as a projected overrun at once, before any invoice exists. A financial alert, Commitments exceed budget, names the line, and the threshold alerts for consumption and for a rising forecast are set by a person with the budget permission.
Step 1
In the project’s costs, open Project finances and choose Contracts & orders, then Add. Enter a Description, a Reference, the Vendor and the Source, which is Contract, Purchase order (PO) or Committed, and add a line for each budget item with its amount excluding tax.
Step 2
A new contract starts as Draft and counts for nothing. Choose Active when it is signed and the amount becomes committed. A contract that falls through is set to Canceled and drops out again; one that is finished is set to Closed.
Step 3
Upload, verify and allocate each vendor invoice to the budget item it belongs to. Invoiced cost then rises on that line. The invoice is not yet tied to a contract at this point.
Step 4
Under Budget mapping, Invoices to Contract, choose the contract line for each invoice allocation. The list offers only lines for the same budget item and the same vendor on an Active or Closed contract, so a wrong match is hard to make.
Step 5
Each contract card shows the three figures. On the cost tracking page the same commitments sit on every budget line next to current budget, invoiced and estimate at completion, and the project total shows Open commitments.
A signed contract changes. On an active contract, choose Amend contract amount, enter the new amount for the line and a Reason, and the commitment follows. Nothing is overwritten silently: the History tab records who made the change, when, and the amount before and after. Contracts and orders are entered by people with the budget permission, and matching invoices to contracts is a separate permission, so the person who types the commitment need not be the one who pays the bill.
Fidrel records the commitments you enter; it does not issue purchase orders or subcontracts. Fidrel does not read a signed contract and fill in its amounts; the amounts are typed in by someone with the right to enter them. A commitment is one amount per budget line; a payment plan, pay applications and retainage are kept separately on the contract between two parties. Amounts are before sales tax unless the project is set to count tax as a cost.
Your trial applies to your first own project and starts when that project is created. No card required. Afterwards, choose card or invoice to continue.
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Read moreMoney promised through signed contracts and orders, whether or not an invoice has arrived. In Fidrel it is the amount of active and closed contracts plus recorded orders, counted once per contract.
Committed cost is what the project has agreed to pay. Actual cost is the approved part of what has been invoiced. A contract can be fully committed and have no actual cost yet.
Enter each contract against its budget items, set it to Active, and code the invoices to the same items. The cost tracking page then shows current budget, committed, invoiced and estimate at completion line by line.
No. A contract in Draft or Canceled shows zero committed. It counts when it is Active, and it keeps counting once it is Closed.
The cost tracking overview shows budget, committed, invoiced and forecast for the project and per line, and the project cost report exports to Excel and CSV.
