What is a budget reservation?
A budget reservation sets money aside when an order is placed, before payment settles. Committed spend is the held amount; spent is what has been paid. Keeping them apart stops a budget being double-booked while orders are in flight.
Example
The Events budget is $2,000. Monday: a $600 banner order is placed, so $600 is committed and $1,400 is available. Tuesday: a $900 order is placed, committed is $1,500, available $500. Wednesday the banner is paid. $600 moves to spent. Thursday the $900 order is cancelled and its $900 goes back.
If cancellations didn't release holds, the budget would shrink for no reason. If placed orders didn't hold money, three people could all spend the same $1,000.
In Atta
Checkout reserves the budget. Payment settles it. The store tells Atta by webhook (HMAC-verified, matched on Shopify's cart token): paid keeps the reservation, cancelled gives it back, and a payment after a release holds the money again.
A total above the row's total holds the difference too. Two buttons on the orders page are the fallback for a store that never reports, and an hourly sweep releases checkouts nobody answers. A handoff is never treated as a payment.
A budget is a single currency. A spend in another currency is refused, because one counter and a one-for-one conversion would be wrong.
Why the distinction matters
Reports that show only spent look healthy while a month of orders is still in flight. Committed plus spent is the number that tells a team lead how much they can still approve. In the example, spent is $600 on Wednesday, while committed plus spent peaked at $1,500 on Tuesday.
Questions
Why not decrement the budget at checkout?
A checkout handoff isn't a payment. The buyer may abandon it, so the amount is held until the store confirms.
Related
- What is a single-use virtual card?A single-use virtual card is a card number created for one purchase with a spending cap, then closed. Definition with a worked example.
- What is spend under management?Spend under management is the share of total spend that flows through a managed process with contracts, approvals and visibility. With an example.
- Spend management softwareA budget reserves money at checkout and settles it on payment. Released if the order is cancelled or abandoned. One currency per budget, no double counting.