The advertising commercials may change your perception. The products may be exaggerated from the actuals. You may get fooled by inappropriate advertising

Incurred Actual normally refers to costs or expenses and their actual value i.e. Incurred actual could be the actual cost of a licence to trade.

From beijingmadeeasy.com Australia - Beijing Flight Times Brisbane 11hrs 10mins Melbourne 12hrs 5mins Sydney 12hrs Flying out tomorrow...will give actuals if possible upon arrival. Fred Bear

Budget tracking is making a comparison of the actuals to date to what was budgeted at the beginning of the period. You want to see how you are doing in relation to your expectations. Like a comparative income statement that runs over a period of time with one side (actual) slowly catching up to the other side (budget).

Buying the commodity outright would be considered "Buying Actuals", where as a commodities futures contract is a contract for "Future Delivery."

For example, let's say that you decide to go into the chocolate cake business. One of your business issues would be the price /cost of cocoa and sugar today. In that case you would buy "Actuals" - i.e. you would by the actual sugar and cocoa for use today.

However, another issue is that you will need sugar and cocoa next month, and the month after etc, etc.

Now you might just go ahead and buy a warehouse, and store your sugar and cocoa, but a better alternative would be to "Lock In" at a price that you could work with by "Buying Futures." Buying futures is making a purchase today for future delivery.

The benefit of buying futures is that you now have price stability - you own that contact for delivery, and that now storage, insurance and interest are non factors as they are now built into your purchase price (these are known as carrying costs, or carrying charges.)

So in essence buying today for delivery today is buying actuals where as buying futures is purchasing a contract for delivery on a future date.