Contract Authority

Contract authority is the total amount of money that is available for the contract. The total amount of the task orders written against that contract cannot exceed the contract authority.

                              Contract amount
                        -    Expended amount of closed task orders
                        -    Amount of executed task orders 
                        =   Contract authority

A task order log is maintained for each contract to track task order costs and contract authority. See this example of a task order log.