Commitments in an Activity

Commitments represent funds that are committed to a specific supplier but have not yet been invoiced or paid. Each commitment can contain multiple commitment items, and the items might belong to different activities. The supplier and all associated activities must be associated with the same finance group. Invoices and journal vouchers can be associated with commitments. You can view, create, edit, and delete the commitments associated with the activity.

Example:
Your organization wants to attend a trade show in 6 months. The trade show organizers require your organization to sign a contract that states that you will pay 15 percent of the rental cost for the booth, even if you cancel your appearance at the trade show. You create a commitment for this contract. The money is committed, but it has not been sent to the trade show organizers. This commitment is reflected in the activity for the trade show, and in the funding accounts for the activity.

Approving Commitments

You can configure an approval process for commitments. The approval process begins when you save and submit the commitment. The commitment cost is applied to the associated activities when the commitment is pending approval or approved. After a commitment cost is approved, the amount cannot be changed without re-approval.

You can associate invoices with commitments. You can track and report on the commitment totals by fiscal period based on the invoices and journal vouchers associated with the commitment.

Key Fields

For information, see Key Fields in Commitment Management.