Benefits of tracking commitments

The primary benefit of tracking commitments is the ability to view real time costs for your project, including costs that were incurred but not yet paid. Without commitments, costs must be processed and posted before they are available for analysis in Project Accounting.

Several online inquiries are available in Project Accounting for viewing actual amounts, budgets, commitments (including line item detail), and remaining budget by activity. This provides a current and comprehensive view of historical, current, and anticipated future costs.

If you need to see real-time costs in activities, or if you use budget edits, you should activate commitments. Commitments are a key component in the budget edit formula. See Budget edits. If you use the Financials Data Mart, you can also include commitments as part of the Scenario dimension.

Example

Joe Schmidt is the project manager for Moosewood Stores. Every day, he needs to know what the up-to-the-minute costs are for various parts of the remodeling project. To see real-time information, he inquires using Activity Analysis (AC90). He selects all activities and account categories in the stores activity group, and clicks Actual, Commitment, Budget to view actual amounts, commitments, total budget, and remaining budget by activity.