Cost centers are a very simple code list used to divide your company into organizational units. By creating multiple cost centers and assigning them to documents, you ensure that outputs can be filtered and analyzed by cost center. This applies to any analytical or accounting outputs.
By default, there is always one base cost center: Headquarters. Flexi requires at least one cost center to exist. If your company does not use cost center divisions, leave the cost center list unchanged (i.e., keep only the default cost center).
If you do want to use cost centers, let's walk through how to create and use them.
Enabling cost centers
In the top toolbar, click the three-dot icon and select Settings from the menu that appears.
On the first page of Settings, under the General Settings heading, you will see the option Use cost centers. Once this option is enabled, cost centers will start appearing in forms.
Where to create a cost center?
You can find cost centers among the code lists in company settings or by using the search. When you open the cost centers module for a new company, you will see the following view.
The screenshot above shows the one existing cost center: Headquarters.
Using the New button in the top-left corner of the application, you can easily create a new cost center and fill in the required details.
If a field is not visible in the form (for example, the address section is hidden by default), you can easily display it using form field settings.
The key fields to consider are:
Name (the name of the cost center; required)
Code (unique identifier of the cost center; required)
Note and description (optional supplementary text)
Address section (if the cost center has a branch address, it can be entered here)
Contact section (if the cost center has a contact different from the one in company settings, it can be entered here)
Print (if cost center information should be printed on documents, enable this checkbox)
Validity (if the cost center is only valid within certain date ranges, this can be configured here — the principles are described in our guide)
Once the cost center is configured as needed, you can proceed to using it.
How to use a cost center?
The principle of using a cost center involves assigning it at the level of any document or other code list. This can include orders, invoices, warehouse documents, as well as warehouses or business partners. Do you need a specific cost center to be pre-filled for certain documents? You can achieve this using document types.
Using a cost center at the code list level
Do you need to define a cost center at the level of another code list so that it is automatically applied in documents, or do you need to configure additional functionality based on it? If so, let's look at examples of modules where a cost center can be set.
A cost center can be added to a business partner. Provided the appropriate setting is enabled in company settings, it will then be automatically applied to documents associated with that business partner.
A cost center can also be set in a document type. By using that document type in a specific document, the cost center will be carried over automatically.
A warehouse can belong to a specific cost center. Warehouse documents inherit the cost center from the warehouse (unless otherwise configured on the warehouse document type).
If a job belongs to a specific cost center, it can be filled in on the job record. Here it serves primarily an informational role.
In the context of production, warehouse mapping can be created that applies only to a specific cost center.
Is your goal to allow users to see only certain cost centers? Using advanced access permissions (available in the Premium plan), this configuration is possible. This feature is currently only available in the desktop application.
Using a cost center at the document level
The primary use case, however, is defining a cost center on a specific document. A cost center can be assigned to any document, but it is most meaningful when applied to accounting documents — invoices/receivables/payables, cash desk/bank entries, warehouse documents, and internal documents. Accounting outputs work with cost centers in particular, and you can select the cost center for which the output should be generated directly in the report wizard.
We will show an example using an issued invoice, to which we will assign a cost center. It is also possible to fill in a cost center at the line-item level — each line item on a document can belong to a different cost center. If you fill it in the document header, line items will inherit it by default.
In any output — for example, a sales analysis or accounting reports — you can then specify which cost center the output should be generated for. Outputs draw their values from the individual line items of documents.
In connection with cost centers, you can also create custom reports using so-called custom queries. If you are interested in creating a custom report, please do not hesitate to contact us.