Release a budget and control commitments

Continue the Acme case

The first period is open. Acme's customer project has a $10,000 spending plan: machine $6,000, payroll $2,000, reserve $2,000. A bank balance is not a spending authorisation.

Role and prerequisites

The financial planner prepares the plan; an independent assigned authority approves publication through Core. The budget controller manages applicable limits and commitments. Acme's company, period, currency, cost centre and articles must already be configured. Employee requests start in Core Work; they do not require a specialist budget workspace.

Release and reserve

1. Prepare the October project plan with separate equipment, payroll and reserve lines. Select sources from Acme's permitted lists, not another company's budget.
2. Submit the plan through its supported publication workflow. The reviewer checks the version, purpose and available funding; the planner cannot approve their own version.
3. Reopen the released version. Confirm $10,000 total and the relevant limits. An unapproved draft is not available spending authority.
4. Continue to the purchase lesson. Use the supported commitment route to reserve $6,000 against the equipment line. Where the installed purchase integration creates the reservation, inspect that source rather than reserving the amount a second time manually.
5. Check committed, actual and remaining values separately. Approval is not cash outflow; invoice execution later converts the linked commitment to actual under the supported route.

Verify the saved result

One released plan and one source-linked $6,000 commitment exist. The overall uncommitted balance is $4,000, including $2,000 payroll and $2,000 reserve; line-level availability follows Acme's configured controls. A cancellation releases only the eligible commitment and preserves its history. A higher request needs the supported budget change and decision, not an edit to a released version.

At close, compare this spending plan with actuals and the ledger. Capital expenditure and profit-and-loss expense are different measures.