Committed vs actual cost

Three numbers describe the cost of a job. Reading them together is how you find out a job is going wrong while you can still do something about it.

Number	Comes from	Answers
Allowed	The Bill of Quantities	What did I price?
Committed	Purchase orders	What have I promised to pay?
Actual	Expenses	What have I been charged?

Turn on Show Actual Costs Columns in the BOQ to see all three per item.

Reading the gaps

Committed above allowed means you have ordered more than you priced. Either a rate has risen, the scope grew, or the estimate was light. Whichever it is, it is visible now rather than at the end.

Actual above committed means you were charged more than you ordered. This is the one to chase — an invoice that exceeds its order is either a supplier error, an undocumented variation to the order, or work nobody authorised.

Committed well below allowed, late in a trade usually means orders have not been raised, rather than that you are under budget. It is the most common false comfort in job costing.

The gap that matters most is actual over committed

An invoice exceeding its order is the cheapest problem to fix and the most expensive to ignore, because it is the one you can still query. Once it is paid, you are negotiating a credit instead of a correction.

Worked example

The Hendricks slab, mid-job:

Item	Allowed	Committed	Actual
Concrete N32	$4,250	$4,250	$4,612
Concrete pump	$850	$850	$850
SL72 mesh	$1,840	$1,840	$1,840
Vapour barrier	$636	$636	$636
Bedding sand	$578	$0	$0
Slab	$8,154	$7,576	$7,938

Two things stand out.

The concrete is $362 over. Actual exceeds both the order and the allowance — worth a phone call. Usually this is an extra part-load, a waiting charge, or a pump-out. If it is legitimate, it is a cost overrun to note; if it is not, it is a credit to claim.

The bedding sand is not committed. The slab is poured, so either it was supplied under the concrete order and the item should be closed off, or it was never ordered and an invoice is coming.

The trade total looks fine — $7,938 against $8,154 allowed. Only the item detail shows both problems.

Where to look

Where	Shows
BOQ with actual cost columns	Item-level, the most detail
Costing metrics on the Projects list	Job-level, cost against budget
The orders list	Everything committed, filterable by supplier
Expenses list	Everything charged, with Hide billed orders

A routine that works

Once a month, or at each claim:

1. Open the BOQ with actual cost columns on.
2. Scan for any item where actual exceeds committed — query those.
3. Scan for trades that are complete but barely committed — chase the missing orders.
4. Check the costing metrics for the job-level picture.

Fifteen minutes. It catches supplier overcharges while they are still arguable and missing orders before the invoice arrives.

Why this depends on ordering properly

None of the above works if orders are skipped. Without a committed figure, the only comparison available is allowed against actual — which tells you about the overrun only once the money is spent.

The committed column is the early-warning one, and it exists only if you raise the orders.