A committed cost is a cost you know is coming: a signed deal memo, a purchase order, a booked studio. Recording it early is what makes the forecast honest before the invoices arrive.

Create a committed cost

Committed costs are created from the cost control detail of a cost type:

  1. Open the Forecast of the project and open the cost type.
  2. Choose to add a committed cost: supplier, description, amount, date and optionally a tag.
  3. Save. The amount now counts as Committed for that cost type.

You can add several at once, and reorder them within the cost type.

Follow them

Production > Committed costs (PO) lists every committed cost of the project with supplier, description, date, amount, status and what is still remaining after linked invoices. The totals at the top show the number of PO's, the total committed, and how many are not yet linked to an invoice. Filter on "Not yet linked only" to see what is still to come, or search on description, supplier or reference.

Invoices against a PO

When an invoice for the committed cost arrives, link its lines to the PO. The remainder goes down; when an invoice line exceeds the live remainder, the approval rules raise an issue and, above a percentage you set, block it. See Payment approval rules.

In the forecast

The forecast card Committed costs & PO's shows the open commitments per cost type. EFC, the expected final cost, is cost to date plus committed. See Cost to date, committed costs and EFC.

Tip: Give every committed cost a date. The cashflow of the production uses dated committed costs as money out. See Financing, tranches and cashflow.