Cost Centres

A cost centre is part of the costing structure in payroll. It can be a physical location, for example a manufacturing plant, or it can be an employee grouping, such as administration or sales. Whatever structure is defined, it is likely that your cost centres will be a replication of the general ledger.

Every transaction in your payroll will be costed to one or more cost centres. A variety of costing reports are available to report on payroll costing allocations, and can be filtered by a range of criteria.

Viewing Your Costing Structure:

Each company must contain at least one cost centre. There is no upper limit on the number of cost centres you can create. Each cost centre can contain a number of departments, which in turn contain employees. Employee payrun costs are collated at the department level, which in turn are collated under cost centres. This allows you to report on payroll costing figures at any level, from employee at the bottom of the structure to cost centre at the top.

You can access your costing structure from two different points:

  1. From the navigator go to Company | Maintain company details. In the company window, the Cost Centres node is listed on the left.

    OR...

    From the navigator go to Payroll | Payroll Framework then double click the Cost Centres node.
  2. Select the Cost Centres node on the left to view all Departments which are linked to that cost centre.
  3. Select a Department node then select the Employees node to see all employees who are linked to that department.
ClosedCreating a Cost Centre
  1. Open the cost centre file.
  2. Select the Cost Centre node on the left, then click Add New on the right.
  3. The following information must be completed: 
    4. Field Explanation
    Code Enter a unique code for this cost centre. The code can include up to 10 alpha-numeric characters.
    Description Enter a description of your cost centre. It can be up to 35 characters long.
    State Select the state to which the cost centre belongs.
  4. If you use the general ledger function, click the General Ledger tab and enter the general ledger prefix for this cost centre.
  5. Click OK when ready.
  6. To insert this cost centre into the costing structure you must link department(s) to the cost centre.
ClosedEditing a Cost Centre
  1. Open the cost centre file (see above).
  2. Select the Cost Centre node on the left, then click Edit on the right.
  3. Edit the fields as required.
ClosedLinking a Cost Centre with a Department

Each cost centre must contain at least one department. To view the departments which are linked to a cost centre, open the cost centre file: 

  1. From the navigator go to Company | Maintain company. In the company window, the Cost centre file is listed on the left.
    OR...
    From the navigator go to Payroll | Payroll Framework then double click the Cost centre node.
  2. Select the Cost Centre node on the left to see a list of all linked departments listed underneath.

Link a Cost Centre and Department

  1. From the navigator go to Company | Maintain company.
  2. In the company window, select the department node on the left.
  3. In the right hand pane select the department you wish to link with the cost centre.
  4. From the cost centre drop down list select the cost centre to link to.
  5. Click OK to save your changes.
ClosedDefining the General Ledger Prefixes for the Department

If you are using a general ledger structure which includes a cost centre segment, you should define a general ledger prefix for each cost centre. This prefix will be included in the cost centre segment of the general ledger code generated from each transaction in this cost centre. To enter the general ledger prefix for a cost centre: 

  1. Open the cost centre file: 
  • From the navigator go to Company | Maintain company.
    In the company window, the cost centre file is listed on the left.
    -- OR --
  • From the navigator go to Payroll | Payroll Framework then double click the cost centre node.
  1. Select the cost centre name on the left, then click on the General Ledger tab on the right.
  2. Using the example of your current definition as a guide, enter the required number of characters for your general ledger prefix. If you have not yet defined your general ledger structure, click Define structure to do it now.
  3. Click Apply to see the cost centre prefix reflected in the example.

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