Actual Costs

Actual costs are the records that capture what a project is truly spending during execution.

What an Actual Cost Record Includes

Amount
Transaction date
Supplier reference
Invoice number
Invoice date
Notes
Review status
Substantiation status
Source linkage — to a module, material, labor item, expense, or commitment line

Two Independent Status Axes

Every actual cost entry carries two separate statuses that are deliberately kept independent:

Axis	Statuses	What it means
Review	`Pending` → `Approved` / `Rejected`	A person’s decision about whether the entry stands
Evidence	`NeedsBackup` / `Substantiated`	What the entry is backed by — computed from the entry itself

An entry can be Approved yet still NeedsBackup; the two are never conflated into a single status chip. Review is a human choice (Pending, Approved, Rejected), while evidence is derived from the entry (NeedsBackup or Substantiated).

What Counts as Substantiated Evidence

An entry is substantiated only when it is backed by something that can actually be checked later:

a document attached as evidence; or
both an invoice number and a supplier.

A supplier on its own, or an invoice number on its own, is not enough — each half alone names nothing that can be verified. No hard block is placed on unsubstantiated entries; they simply stay labeled NeedsBackup.

Display vs. Lifecycle Counting

Because the two axes are independent, Darwin counts entries differently depending on purpose:

Display and variance totals — every non-deleted entry counts, and the provisional/substantiated split is shown so you can see both.
Commitment consumption and cancellation guards — only substantiated entries count. An unreviewed or unsubstantiated figure can never consume a commitment line, close a subcontract, or prevent a commitment’s cancellation.

This matters because the rollup does not just render a number — it drives commitment status changes.

Commitment Linkage

Actual costs can be linked to specific commitment lines. When a substantiated cost detail is approved against a linked commitment line, the commitment’s rollups are refreshed — updating its actual amount, remaining amount, and its PartiallyConsumed / Consumed status.

Cost Activity Feed

The Recorded Activity page (Operations menu) merges commitments and actuals into a single paginated chronological feed, filterable by project, type, status, and baseline. It is a financial log of what has been recorded — distinct from the platform-wide Organization Activity feed described in Approvals & Activity History.

AI-Assisted Cost Attribution

Darwin compares eligible commitment lines by purchase-order number, supplier, and amount within tolerance. It drops candidates below the minimum score and presents near-ties together. Date and description keywords are not active scoring rules today.

Optional AI assistance is off by default and depends on your release and configuration. It can engage on near-ties or low-confidence text extraction to read evidence and re-rank existing candidates. With no candidates, the result stays empty. A person accepts, adjusts, or dismisses each suggestion; AI does not link costs or establish evidence on its own.

Learning Integration

Module accuracy uses substantiated costs and groups attributable to the module. A point can be unavailable because evidence is missing or the group mixes sources that cannot be separated. Inspect the reasons in Variance Reporting; one unsupported entry does not automatically invalidate every project point.

Best Practices

Capture actuals with as much source context as possible
Attach a document, or both an invoice number and a supplier, so an entry is substantiated
Link actuals to the relevant commitment lines when available
Review pending items before treating them as accepted actuals
Keep the commitment bridge visible: procurement variance (commitment vs. baseline) is separate from execution variance (actual vs. commitment)