Every savings figure in oboloo is built up from milestones: each milestone has a baseline spend and projected savings, and gets realised savings when it's completed. This article gives the formula behind each figure on a milestone and a savings record.

For the tiles and charts on the Savings Initiatives page, see Understanding the Savings Dashboard.

Types of saving

Type

What it means

Cost Reduction

Savings from reducing costs you actually pay, for example a lower unit price on renewal.

Cost Avoidance

Savings from avoiding a cost you would otherwise have paid, for example holding off a proposed price increase.

Baseline Spend is the amount you'd expect to spend without the saving, for example the total cost of a contract over the milestone's period.

Milestone figures

Figure

How it's calculated

Total Projected Savings

Projected Cost Reduction + Projected Cost Avoidance

Total Projected Savings %

Total Projected Savings ÷ Baseline Spend × 100

Total Realised Savings

Realised Cost Reduction + Realised Cost Avoidance, entered when you mark the milestone as complete

Total Realised Savings %

Total Realised Savings ÷ the milestone's Baseline Spend × 100

Savings record totals

Figure

How it's calculated

Total Baseline Spend

The sum of every milestone's Baseline Spend

Total Projected Savings

The sum of every milestone's Total Projected Savings

Total Projected Savings (%)

Total Projected Savings ÷ Total Baseline Spend × 100

Total Baseline Spend Against Realised Savings

The sum of the Baseline Spend of Completed milestones only

Total Realised Savings

The sum of the Total Realised Savings of Completed milestones

Total Realised Savings (%)

Total Realised Savings ÷ Total Baseline Spend Against Realised Savings × 100

Realised savings are compared only with the baseline of the milestones they came from, so the percentage isn't diluted by milestones that haven't finished yet.

💡 Example: A savings initiative has two milestones, each with a baseline spend of £100 and projected savings of £20. Total Baseline Spend is £200 and Total Projected Savings (%) is 20% (£40 ÷ £200). Milestone 1 is completed with realised savings of £35. Total Baseline Spend Against Realised Savings is £100, so Total Realised Savings (%) is 35% (£35 ÷ £100), not 17.5%.

Milestones that are Pending Approval or Rejected aren't completed, so they stay in projected savings and don't count towards realised totals until they're approved.

Dashboard and currency

The dashboard tiles add up milestones across all your counted savings: Total Realised Savings from completed milestones, and Remaining Projected Savings from milestones that aren't complete. The two percentage tiles show these as a percentage of the matching baseline spend. Understanding the Savings Dashboard explains which savings are included.

Amounts on a milestone and savings record are always in the saving's own currency. For the dashboard, oboloo converts them to your base currency by dividing by each milestone's Exchange Rate Against Base Currency. Changing a milestone's rate never changes its amounts, only its base-currency figures on the dashboard. See Understanding Currency Conversion.

💡 Tip: If you're not sure whether a saving is a cost reduction or a cost avoidance, check your organisation's savings policy with your procurement team, so everyone categorises savings the same way.

Common questions

Why is my realised % higher than my projected %?

Realised % only uses the baseline spend of completed milestones, while projected % uses the baseline of every milestone. Early in a saving, the two are measured against different amounts.

I completed a milestone but Total Realised Savings hasn't changed

If you chose an approver, the milestone is Pending Approval and stays projected until it's approved. See Approving Savings Milestones.

What happens if I change a completed milestone's baseline spend?

oboloo recalculates the milestone's Total Realised Savings % and the saving's Total Baseline Spend Against Realised Savings and Total Realised Savings (%).

Why doesn't the dashboard match my savings record?

The dashboard is in your base currency and leaves out archived, draft, Cancelled, unapproved and rejected savings. A savings record shows its own totals in its own currency.

Related articles

📌 Need Further Help?
If you need further assistance, please contact your internal platform administrator for support. Otherwise please reach out to oboloo's support team. If you are unable to view the above area in the oboloo platform, please check your user permissions and access rights.