Reviewing and managing the structure of your Cost Centres and Cost Codes can impact your reports, particularly for prior years. It's crucial to understand the implications of any changes you might make. This guide will provide insight into actions related to Cost Centres and Cost Codes:
1. Adding new ones
2. Removing existing ones
3. Changing existing ones
4. Complete overhaul
💡 Altering existing Cost Centres and Cost Codes can affect your capacity to track income and expenditure across multiple years. Please review this guide carefully.
Cost Centres are main headers in your reports, intended to group associated Cost Codes. For example, a Cost Centre titled "Income" may have Cost Codes such as Precept, Grants, Bank Interest, etc.
Adding new Cost Centres and/or Cost Codes is a straightforward process, and can be performed at any point during the year. Please refer to the linked help guides for assistance.
After adding new codes, if there are existing transactions that should be reallocated to these new codes, this can be done in two ways:
1. Edit the original transaction and select the appropriate Cost Centre and/or Cost Code. This method is recommended if there are only a few transactions to amend.
2. Move the total using a Code Transfer This leaves the transactions allocated to the original code, but moves the total to the new code. This method is recommended if there are many transactions or if you wish to maintain the audit trail of their original allocation.
💡 If you're adding new Cost Centres and/or Cost Codes, be mindful of your budget allocations. If you wish to show an element of the existing budget against a new Cost Code, you'll need to enter this against the code. At the same time, reduce the code from which the budget is coming by the same amount to maintain the overall value.
You can delete Cost Centres and Cost Codes that have no dependents, meaning no transactions are allocated to them or no Cost Codes are assigned to them in the case of Cost Centres. Attempting to delete a Cost Centre or Cost Code with dependents will result in an error message. Deleting a Cost Centre or Cost Code only affects data in the financial year you're currently logged into, not previous years' data.
You can amend the names (descriptions) of Cost Centres and Cost Codes, which will take effect only in the year they are modified. It's recommended to only change names for clarification purposes rather than changing them entirely.
If you want to change the order of Cost Centres and Cost Codes on your reports, you can amend their IDs as well. It's recommended to only change IDs that aren't in use, and if a significant number of codes need amending, it's best to set up the structure again at the start of the next financial year.
If the changes you wish to make are substantial or you want to start afresh with a completely new structure, it's best to do this at the start of a new financial year, before entering any transactions. This is because:
- A new year means there are no transactions entered or existing dependencies, making the process simpler.
- Partially modifying Cost Centres and Cost Codes during a financial year can make reports difficult to understand when compared to previous months or quarters.
- Some year-end reports display information about multiple financial years, so it's easier to see a Cost Centre phased out across 2 or 3 years as a new one comes into play. A Cost Centre that stops being
used will still appear in the accounts due to year-end adjustments incorporated the following year.
Any changes to your structure will take effect only in the year you make the changes. Comparisons with the previous year might be more challenging, as new or amended Cost Centres and Cost Codes may not exist in both years. However, once you have completed a year with the new or amended structure, comparisons will once again be more meaningful.