What approvers see: the commitment summary
Back to index Read this one if you approve expenses. It is the most important article in this set. The problem it solves You are approving a recurring expense for $2,350. You are not approving...
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Read this one if you approve expenses. It is the most important article in this set.
The problem it solves
You are approving a recurring expense for $2,350.
You are not approving $2,350.
You are approving $2,350 a month for the next 36 months. You are approving $84,600.
Before this release, the approval screen showed you a bare "Recurring" chip and a one-line cadence sentence, and only on two of the ten places an approver could be standing. Everywhere else, a $84,600 commitment looked identical to a $2,350 one-off.
That is fixed. Every approver surface now shows the commitment.
What the commitment summary shows
Wherever you are approving from, you get the same block, built from the same facts, so no two screens can ever disagree with each other about what a contract commits the property to.
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| FIXED / VARIABLE | The contract type, as a badge. FIXED means the price is committed. VARIABLE means it moves. |
| Amount + cadence | The per-occurrence amount and how often it fires. A VARIABLE amount is shown with a ~ to signal it is not a fixed number. |
| Term | "Thru Jun 30, 2027" for a dated contract. "Open-ended · last approved Jul 1, 2026 · renews Jul 2027" for an open-ended one. |
| Next run | When the next occurrence posts. |
| Committed total | The number that matters. The full amount this contract commits the property to over its remaining term. |
"Committed total": what it actually means
It is the per-occurrence amount multiplied by the number of occurrences left in the term.
- A $2,350 monthly FIXED contract running through June 2027, with 36 occurrences left: $84,600.
- A contract with 4 quarterly occurrences left at $8,000: $32,000.
For an open-ended or VARIABLE contract, the committed total reads "Ongoing". Not "$0.00", and not a fabricated precise number. There is no honest total for a contract with no end and no fixed price, so the system says so rather than inventing one.
This is the number you are approving. If the committed total surprises you, that is exactly the signal this feature was built to give you. Ask about it before you approve.
The amendment delta
If somebody has changed the price on a FIXED contract, the approval you are looking at is an amendment, and you are being asked to approve the new number.
You will see the old and new amount side by side, with the percentage change:
Amendment
$2,350.00→ $2,630.00 +11.9%Full staff chain and board re-run on the amended amount
An increase shows in a warning colour. A decrease shows in a positive colour. That is the same in the web app and on mobile: a price going down should not look like an alarm, and it does not.
If you see a delta, somebody changed the price and is asking you to accept it. That is the entire reason the approval came back to you. Look at the percentage. A 3% CPI bump and a 40% jump are very different conversations.
Where you will see it
The commitment summary reaches every place an approver can stand:
1. The expense drawer (the approval chain card)
Open the expense. In the right-hand sidebar, above the approval chain timeline, you get the full card: the FIXED/VARIABLE badge, the amount and cadence, the Term / Next run / Committed total facts, and the amendment delta panel if there is one.
This is the richest view. If you are unsure about an approval, open the drawer.
2. The batch approval screen
When you are working through a stack of approvals quickly, each card carries a one-line strip:
FIXED · Monthly thru Jun 2027 · commits $28,200
plus the amendment delta inline if there is one. It is compact by necessity, but the committed total is right there. You cannot swipe through a $28,200 commitment thinking it is a one-off.
3. The pending expenses list
Each pending row carries a compact chip:
FIXED · thru Jun 2027or, on an amendment:
FIXED · Amendment · +11.9%
So you can spot the contract-backed expenses, and the amendments, without opening anything.
4. The board decision screen (web)
When the board is voting on a contract-backed expense, the commitment block sits between the description and the vote panel, so it is impossible to reach the vote buttons without scrolling past what you are committing to.
5. The board's mobile card
Board members voting from their phone get the same facts: the amount (with the delta if it is an amendment), the Term, and the Committed total. See For board members.
6. The approval notification
The note that goes out with the approval, and with reminders and escalations, carries the same facts. So even if you are reading it in an email, you are not reading a bare "please approve this expense".
The rule underneath all of this
The same facts, computed once, shown everywhere. The Scheduled tab, the drawer, the batch screen, the pending row, the board screen, the mobile card, and the notification email all derive the commitment from one place.
There is no screen in the product that can tell you a different committed total than another screen. That is by construction.
When there is no commitment summary
If the expense is not backed by a recurring contract, there is nothing to show, and nothing is shown. No empty box, no "$0.00 committed", no placeholder. The block simply is not there.
An absent commitment summary means "this is not a recurring contract", which is itself useful information.
What you should actually do with this
- Read the committed total before you approve. Not the monthly amount. The total.
- If you see an amendment delta, look at the percentage. Somebody moved the price and you are being asked to bless it.
- Check the term. A 60-month commitment is a different decision from a 12-month one at the same monthly rate.
- Check the contract type. A FIXED contract's number is a promise. A VARIABLE contract's number is an estimate, and you should read it that way.
- If the numbers do not add up, open the drawer. The full card and the approval chain history are there.
What the system records
Your approval is recorded, along with the exact commitment facts you were shown at the time. If an approval is later questioned, the record shows what was on the screen when it was given.