What it is
The ladder is the live money position of a commitment against its buy envelope, in four terms that tie in cents: declared, held for the chase, open to commit, placed. It is one ladder: the book, the room and the desk's money line read the same position read, so a number checked on one page is the number on the next. Four terms, not three: leaving out the reserve would make open to commit and remaining the same figure under two names.
How Tightly decides it
Every leg is integer cents from the record onward, and each carries both cents and dollars so a reader can re-assert the arithmetic. Declared is the envelope as signed. Held for the chase is the declared reserve less every release against it. Placed is the cost of purchase orders placed against the scope over the window, on the same lines and the same valuation as open to buy's committed figure, split into what has landed and what has not. Open to commit is declared, less held, less placed, and it is signed: once placed spend eats into the reserve it goes negative and is shown, never floored.
Two legs sit beside those four. Reserved is drafted purchase order cost, money already written down and not yet placed; free to commit is open to commit less reserved, and it is the leg the verdict is stated on, because a green computed on room that drafts have already claimed is a green a buyer can spend twice. Remaining is declared less placed. For a rolling commitment the ladder is measured over the current fiscal month, since its envelope is a monthly rate. Across the portfolio, shortfalls are summed and never netted against another commitment's surplus: a pool does not lend.
A leg that cannot be computed comes back absent with its reason, never zero, and a scope the envelope engine cannot bind reads not computed in the compiler's own words. A failed read is a failed read, never an empty position.
The words on the face
The room's money line stays at the top: Buying budget, Placed, Draft orders, Available to commit and Protected reserve. Draft orders reads native purchase reservations; Available to commit reads native free headroom after those drafts and the protected reserve. Working-copy depths do not replace these figures. A missing leg remains unavailable. The segmented bar appears only when the five known, nonnegative figures reconcile in one currency and period; it does not force an unknown leg to zero.
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Buying budget | The envelope as signed |
| Placed | Purchase order cost placed against the scope, with its share of the envelope |
| Draft orders | Purchase reservations not yet placed |
| Available to commit | Native free headroom after placed orders, drafts and protected reserve |
| Protected reserve | The declared reserve less its releases |
| Worked buy | The working copy of the buy, at unit cost |
| Remaining to plan | The envelope less the reserve less the worked buy |
| Not computed | A scope or a leg the read could not bind, with the reason |
On All commitments each row carries an Open to commit column, and the head's Envelope and Available figures total the rows in view. A commitment without an envelope reads No envelope declared and measures no money.
What you can do about it
Amend moves the declared rung as a new version. Release the chase moves money from held into open to commit. Add to Bench stages lines that would draw on free to commit without moving it; confirming an order out of Drafted is the one door where a line the ladder cannot fund is refused. Open to buy reads the plan's side of the same money, month by month.
Glossary line
The ladder is a commitment's money position in four terms that tie in cents, declared, held for the chase, open to commit and placed, read from one position read on every page that shows it.