# What is a budget reservation? > A budget reservation holds money for an order before it is paid. Committed means held, spent means paid. Definition and a worked example. Updated 2026-11-06. Source: https://atta.sh/glossary/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.