What it is
Open to commit is the rung of the ladder that says what room is left: the buy envelope as declared, less the chase reserve still held, less what has been placed. Free to commit is open to commit less what has been drafted and not yet placed. The two differ by exactly one thing, the reserved money sitting in drafted purchase orders, and they answer two different questions. Open to commit says where the ladder stands against placed spend. Free to commit says what may still be written today.
The commitment's money line shows Available to commit: free to commit after draft reservations. Draft orders appear separately beside Placed and Protected reserve. All commitments' Open to commit column and its Available total retain open to commit before draft reservations. Free to commit is also said in the Bench's clause, and a month of the plan carries it as a column. On a plan month, the month's receipts needed less what is placed for it is Open to buy, the plan's residual, and not this rung.
How Tightly decides it
Both are computed in integer cents from the same read. Open to commit is signed: an over-spent envelope reads negative, because flooring it would hide the breach. Free to commit is unfloored for the same reason. The verdict a commitment carries, short or on track, is tested against free to commit, not open to commit, so drafts that have already claimed the room cannot let the same dollars be spent twice. A commitment whose drafts could not be read is never on track: a green is never stated on unknown drafts.
Open to commit is not open to buy, and neither is the company's Budget left. On the ladder, what remains of the envelope is the envelope less what is placed; the chase reserve is a policy on how much of that to leave alone, and open to commit is the signed distance between the two: what remains, less the reserve still held. Open to buy is the plan's own residual, receipts needed less what is placed, and Budget left is the company's approved receipt budget less placed purchases. A release moves money out of the reserve and into open to commit by arithmetic, adding back exactly what was released. Open to buy is read per category per month on its own page.
The words on the face
| Word | Where | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Open to commit | All commitments | Declared less held less placed |
| Available to commit | The commitment's money line | Open to commit less draft reservations |
| Draft orders | The commitment's money line | Money reserved by drafted purchase orders |
| free to commit | The Bench's money clause, a plan month's column | What may still be written today |
| Available | The head of All commitments | Open to commit, totalled over the rows in view |
| Within the envelope, At the limit, Over the envelope | The Bench | How staged lines would sit against free to commit; At the limit is within a cent |
| No envelope declared | The Bench | The commitment measures no money |
On the Bench the clause names the commitment the staged lines draw on and its free to commit, or counts the commitments where they draw on several, and the commitments over their limit come first. Staging reserves nothing: the figures are what the lines would draw if they became orders.
What you can do about it
Release the chase to widen open to commit against a named winner. Amend to move the envelope itself. Cancel drafted purchase orders to hand reserved money back to free to commit. Confirming an order out of Drafted is where a line the commitment cannot fund is refused, line by line; every other door writes without consulting the ladder, and the position simply shows it.
Glossary line
Open to commit is the envelope less the chase reserve held less what is placed, the room left on the ladder; free to commit is open to commit less what is drafted, what may still be written today.
Needs pricing means the staged draw is incomplete. Those lines cannot be labelled within the envelope until their costs are known.