A commitment is a deal you have already agreed with a vendor: what you are buying, at what price, and for which project. Orders you place later draw against it, so you can see what you committed to and what is left.
Before you start
Your company must have commitments turned on. If Commitments is missing from the top navigation bar, ask your Admin, or contact us.
By default, Admins, Purchasers and Users can open commitments, and Admins and Purchasers can create them. Your company can change this per role in Company Settings.
Every commitment belongs to 1 project and 1 vendor, so you need both before you start.
The types you may see
You may see 1 or both of these, depending on what your company has turned on:
Material Commitment: agreed quantities and unit prices for materials from your Material Database.
Budget Commitment: one allocated budget for a vendor, drawn down as you place orders.
Concrete supply is tracked separately, in Concrete Batch Tracking under Project Management. It is a separate product and does not appear in this list.
What the Commitments page shows
The table lists every commitment for the project you have selected, or for all projects. Each row is one commitment with one vendor. The columns include Status, Project, Type, Commitment, Vendor, Expiration Date, Total Budgeted, Total ordered, Total Remaining, Total invoiced and Total un-invoiced.
From this page you can:
Use the project selector to switch between all projects and a single project.
Use the search box to find a commitment.
Open the filter panel to set Filters, choose Columns, or use Download to export the list.
Click Create to start a new commitment.
Statuses
The chips above the table filter the list by status.
Drafted: saved, but not submitted yet.
Confirmed: submitted. You can place orders against it.
Partially delivered: some of what was ordered against it has been delivered.
Delivered: everything ordered against it has been delivered.
Closed: still on record, but not available for new orders.
Cancelled: stopped.
Closed and Cancelled are not counted in All.
Closing and reopening a commitment
Open a commitment and click Close Commitment when it is fully spent or no longer needed. Existing orders stay linked to it, but it will not be offered for new orders. Click Reopen Commitment to bring it back.
How commitments relate to orders and invoices
The order is commitment, then orders, then invoices. You agree the commitment, place orders against it, and invoices arrive against those orders. The totals on the commitment update at each step.
Best practices
Close a commitment rather than cancelling it when the work is done. Existing orders stay linked and you can reopen it later. Cancelling reads as an agreement that was abandoned.
Settle the vendor before you place the first order against a commitment. Once an order is linked, the vendor is fixed and the only way out is a new commitment.
Check Total Remaining before you place an order, not Total Budgeted. Budgeted is what you agreed at the start; remaining is what is actually left to order.
If this doesn't work
Start a chat from the Messenger in the bottom-left of this page, or email help@subbase.io. Include the order or project number and what you expected to happen.