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FAQ: What are the different budget impact categories?

When Zudello tracks spending against your budgets, it categorises the allocated amounts to give you insight into the different stages of your financial commitments. The main categories are:

  1. Actual Spend:

    • What it is: Finalised costs that have typically been processed and posted to your general ledger. This represents money already spent or definitively owed based on completed transactions.
    • Includes: Primarily Completed Invoices and Credits (Credits reduce Actual Spend). Potentially completed Expenses in future.
    • Significance: Reflects historical performance against the budget.

  2. Committed Spend:

    • What it is: Spend your organisation has formally committed to via an approved Purchase Order (PO), but which hasn't yet been fully invoiced (and therefore isn't yet Actual Spend).
    • Includes: Approved POs (in Pending or Complete status types like Placed, Received, Partially Invoiced). Zudello automatically deducts amounts already invoiced against a PO from its contribution to Committed Spend to avoid double-counting.
    • Significance: Shows legally committed future spending that needs to be accounted for against the budget.

  3. Pending Spend:

    • What it is: Spend currently undergoing internal approval processes. It hasn't yet become Actual or Committed Spend.
    • Includes: Transactions in an Approval status type (Requisitions, POs, Invoices, Credits, Claims). Pending Credits increase the available budget view.
    • Significance: Represents potential upcoming spend currently under review.

  4. New Spend (or Under Review Spend):

    • What it is: Spend captured in Zudello (e.g., extracted invoices, draft requisitions) but not yet submitted for approval.
    • Includes: Transactions in Review or Active status types (like User Review, Ready, Draft). New Credits increase the available budget view.
    • Significance: Provides early visibility into potential spending entering the system.

How they relate:

Remaining Budget = Budget Amount - (Actual Spend + Committed Spend + Pending Spend + New Spend)

By tracking these different categories, Zudello provides a more comprehensive view of budget utilisation than just looking at Actual Spend alone, helping you understand both past performance and future commitments.

See Understanding Budget Impact Categories for more details.