Savings Management tracks the savings your organisation expects and achieves from procurement activity, using savings initiatives broken down into milestones. Open it from Savings Management > Savings Initiatives in the left-hand menu.
How savings are structured
Each savings initiative is a parent record that holds the details of the saving: what it is, who supplies it and how it's categorised. Underneath it sit one or more milestones, which hold the money: each milestone has its own dates, baseline spend and projected savings.
The totals on a savings initiative are the totals of its milestones, and its start and due dates come from its first and last milestones.
What's in a savings initiative
Field | What it holds |
Savings Initiative Title and Description/Notes | The name and a description of the saving. |
Status | Not Started, In Progress, Completed or Cancelled (or Draft until creation is finished). |
Saving Type | Your own savings types, set up in Settings. See Add or Delete Dropdown Values. |
Currency | The saving's currency. Each milestone stores its own exchange rate to your base currency. |
Category, Sub Category, Location and Department | How the saving is categorised for reporting. You can choose several categories. |
Supplier Name and Associated Contract | The supplier and contract the saving relates to. |
Saving Parent/Child Relationship | Links to another savings initiative as its parent or child. |
Total Baseline Spend, Total Projected Savings, Total Realised Savings | Totals of all its milestones. See How Are Savings Calculated Within oboloo?. |
Savings Due Date | The end date of its last milestone. |
The user who creates a saving becomes its first owner. Add more on the Savings Owners tab; every saving needs at least one. Supporting files go on the Documents tab (Savings Plus).
Milestones
On the free plan, each savings initiative has one milestone. With Savings Plus you can create 1 to 60 milestones at a time with the milestone builder, and add more later with Add Milestone. See Milestones Overview.
Projected and realised savings
Projected savings are what you expect to save: each milestone's Projected Cost Reduction plus Projected Cost Avoidance.
Realised savings are what you actually saved. When you mark a milestone as complete, its realised cost reduction and avoidance start with the projected amounts, and you change them to the actual figures.
Realised % divides realised savings by the baseline spend of the completed milestones only, so it isn't diluted by milestones still in progress.
To complete a milestone, open the Milestones tab, click its Action menu (⋮) and choose Mark as Complete. See Editing and Completing Milestones.
The dashboard at the top of the Savings Initiatives page then shows your Total Realised Savings and Remaining Projected Savings. See Understanding the Savings Dashboard.
What you can do from here
To… | Do this | Guide |
Create a savings initiative | Click Create Savings Record | |
Get savings approved before they count | Choose an approver when you create the saving | |
Get milestones approved before they're realised | Choose an approver when you mark a milestone as complete | |
Report on milestones across all savings | Go to Savings Management > Milestone Reporting | |
Get an AI summary of a saving | Click Summarise with AI on the record | |
Restrict who can see or edit a saving | Set its Record Access |
Common questions
Why can't I add more than one milestone?
Multiple milestones need the Savings Plus plan. See What's Included on the Free Plan and Plus Plans.
Where do I change a saving's start and end dates?
Edit the dates of its first or last milestone. The saving's dates follow its milestones.
Why is my realised % different from my projected %?
Projected % uses the baseline of every milestone; realised % uses only the baseline of completed milestones.
Related articles
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.