Cost Center
Cost Centers are the lowest organizational unit for cost tracking — the specific department, plant, or function that costs are actually allocated to. Every Cost Center is linked to a Profit Center, and it’s that link which determines the Business Entity and Group Company it belongs to. This is what Cost Center Reports groups your expenses by, and it’s what rolls up into the “Less: cost” figure on Profit Center Reports.
Access is permission-controlled. If you can’t see this screen, your administrator can grant you access.
The list view
Go to Master Data in the sidebar and select Cost Center.
Summary counters at the top show Total, Active, and Inactive records.
Searching and filtering
Search by CC number or cost center name. Where nothing matches, a “No Cost Centers found” message appears.
Four filters narrow the list independently: Status (All, Active, Inactive), CC Type, Business Entity, and Profit Center.
Choosing columns
Column visibility is configurable, except for the Status and Actions columns, which are always shown.
Automatic expiry
Every time the list loads, the system checks each record’s Valid Till date. Any cost center whose validity has passed is automatically set to Inactive. If a cost center you expect to be Active shows as Inactive, check its Valid Till date first.
Creating a Cost Center
Click + New.
Fields
CC Number — you don’t set this. A preview appears in the field, but the final number, in the format CC-{Business Entity Code}-XXXX, is only assigned once you save. It cannot be edited.
Cost Center Name — free text, up to 25 characters. Must be unique within the profit center you assign it to.
Profit Center — selected from a dropdown listing only Active profit centers. This is the field that matters most on this form: choosing it auto-populates the Business Entity Code, Business Entity Name, Group Company Code, and Group Company Name below, and determines the CC Number prefix. Once the record is saved, this field is locked and cannot be reassigned to a different profit center.
Business Entity and Group Company — you don’t set these directly. Both are derived automatically from the profit center you selected and shown read-only.
Cost Center Type — chosen from a grouped dropdown:
| Group | Types |
|---|---|
| Functional | HR, Finance, IT, Legal, Admin |
| Production & Manufacturing | Plant, Assembly Line, Processing Unit |
| Service | IT Support, Maintenance, Logistics Support |
| Overhead | Warehouse, Procurement, Security |
Individual / Org Responsible — free text, up to 25 characters, naming who or what is accountable for this cost center.
Created By — free text, up to 25 characters.
Created On — a date picker.
Valid Till — a date picker. This cannot be set to the same date as Created On — the system requires at least one day of validity. This date also drives the automatic inactivation described above.
Status — Active or Inactive.
Description — optional, up to 40 characters.
Saving
Click Save. The system validates every mandatory field, checks that the name is unique within the profit center, confirms Valid Till isn’t the same as Created On, and then assigns the final CC Number. Where a check fails, the message appears inline beside the field and the record isn’t saved.
Once saved, a confirmation appears and you’re returned to the list with your new record visible.
Cancel returns you to the list without saving.
Viewing a Cost Center
Click the View icon to see every field in read-only form, organized under Cost Center Details, Profit Center, and Business Entity & Group Company sections. Any field with no value shows a dash.
Editing a Cost Center
Click the Edit icon. All existing values are pre-filled. Profit Center is locked and cannot be changed — the same restriction that applies at creation.
Deleting a Cost Center
Click the Delete icon. A confirmation modal appears before the record is removed.
Deletion is blocked if the cost center has been used in transactions. If it needs to be retired rather than removed, inactivating it is the better path.
Working with multiple records
Bulk actions
Select records using the checkboxes, then choose from: Mark Active, Mark Inactive, Extend Validity, or Export PDF. Attempting a bulk action with nothing selected produces a warning.
Extending validity
To bring an expired cost center back to Active, open Actions › Extend Validity and enter a new Valid Till date. The new date must be in the future, and the status switches back to Active automatically once saved.
This only works on cost centers that have actually expired, and only one at a time — you can’t batch-extend several expired records in a single action.
Exporting
Click Export and choose PDF, MS Excel, or Google Sheets. Exporting an empty list produces a “No data to export” message.
Importing
Click Import and upload a CSV, XLS, or XLSX file. Once processed, a summary shows how many records were added and how many were skipped.
Rows are skipped if they’re missing required columns, or if they reference a profit center that’s inactive or doesn’t exist. Worth checking your profit centers are set up and active before a bulk import, since that’s the most likely reason for skipped rows.