Cost centers

A cost center is an analytical label that you attach to journal entry lines, order items, payments, expenses, supplier invoices, and fixed assets to answer a simple question: which piece of the business did this expense or income come from? Mosce ERP supports parent-child hierarchy, so you can model Company → Division → Team without duplicating codes.

Reading time: ~5 min

When to use this

• You want an Income Statement broken down by branch, project, or line of business.
• You need to measure the profitability of a specific team or department.
• Your business has budgets by area and you want to compare against actuals.
• You are migrating from an external system where you already managed centers and want to replicate the structure.

Before you start

• The Accounting module is active.
• Your role includes the accounting:cost-center permission to create or edit.
• Define the hierarchy mentally before you start - moving it later is possible but breaks operational momentum.

How cost centers work

Each cost center carries:

• Short, unique code within the tenant (e.g. CC-VENTAS, CC-OPS).
• Descriptive name.
• Optional parent cost center for nesting in hierarchies.
• Status active or inactive.

Once created, the cost center becomes available as an optional attribute in the various modules:

• Journal entry lines - segments each accounting movement.
• Sales order lines - attributes sales to the corresponding center.
• Payments and collections - attributes the cash movement.
• Expenses - attributes direct expenses.
• Supplier invoices and fixed assets - attribute the purchase or the asset.
• Budgets - defines budgets by center for the Budget vs Actual report.

Step by step

Create a cost center

1. Go to Accounting → Cost centers and press New cost center.
2. Complete:
   • Code (max. 20 characters, unique within the tenant).
   • Name (max. 100 characters).
   • Optional parent cost center. If you leave it empty, it is a root center.
   • Active checked by default.
3. Save. The center becomes visible in the tree and available in all corresponding selectors.

Build a hierarchy

Centers are shown as an expandable tree. To nest:

1. First create the root centers (e.g. CC-NORTE, CC-SUR).
2. Then create the children by choosing the root as the parent cost center (e.g. CC-NORTE-VENTAS with parent CC-NORTE).
3. The UI uses Collapse / Expand icons and shows descendants with indentation.

Mosce ERP does not impose a hard limit on levels, but for operational sanity stay at two or three. More depth complicates the reports.

Link to transactions

• Journal entries: when loading lines in Accounting → Journal entries, each line brings an optional cost center selector.
• Expenses: the expense form has a Cost center field that is inherited by the journal entry line generated on posting.
• Supplier invoices: same as expenses - the center goes in the header and propagates.
• Sales and collections: order items and payments carry their own center, which lets you attribute the income to the team that closed the sale.
• Fixed assets: the center is fixed at registration and reflected in every depreciation journal entry.

Edit and deactivate

• Edit: change name, code, parent, or status. Changing the parent moves the entire branch.
• Deactivate: press Delete cost center and confirm. It is marked isActive = false and disappears from the selectors; reactivate it by editing.

Reports by center

Cost centers do not appear on their own - they are a cross-cutting dimension:

• Income Statement by center: from Reports → P&L by cost center you filter by one or several centers.
• Budget vs Actual: a budget can be limited to a cost center and the report crosses only the movements with that center.
• General ledger: filters the movement detail by center.

Expected result

• A clear taxonomy of centers that your team applies consistently when loading transactions.
• Financial reports sliced by center, ready for management.
• Sectorized budgets that compare apples-to-apples.

Common errors

Related

• Journal entries
• Budgets
• Budget vs Actual
• Expenses