About cost centers and cost center groups

Cost centers allow you to roll up revenue and expenses in broad categories. An operating profit and loss sheet may encompass multiple cost centers. 

Cost centers are a prerequisite to establishing general ledger accounts and transaction codes.

A cost center group is an optional method to combine individual cost centers for access and reporting.

Use cost center permissions to control who may work with each cost center.

Prerequisites

• None.

Required permissions

Create cost center

1. Go to Accounting > Cost Center Maintenance.

2. Under Cost Centers click New Record.

   • Function: A numerical Campus Cafe-generated number which is either Style A - The first position of the cost center X 10 or Style B - The first 2 positions in the cost center or by cost center. For example, if the cost center were 8110, Style A function would be 80, and Style B function would be 81.

   • Cost Center: Numerical number to identify the cost center.

   • Title: Descriptive text of the cost center.

   • External Cost Center: Additional number to describe the cost center. (e.g. a number to cross-reference with another system such as QuickBooks.)

     Open

     

     An example of a cost center to comprise transactions related to academic affairs.

3. Click Create.

Create cost center group

1. Go to Accounting > Cost Center Maintenance.

2. Under Cost Center Groups, click New Record.

   • Group Number: A unique number to identify a collection of cost centers.

   • Cost Center Number: The numerical value of the cost center belonging to this group.

   • Description: Text that describes the center.
     
     

     Open

     

     In this example we add cost center 1 to a cost center group 50, which is for academic operations. We can add additional cost centers to this group by adding a new entry for each cost center and adding them all the group 50.

3. Click Create.

4. Repeat steps 2-3 for each cost center that is part of the group, using the same group number but changing the cost center number for each unique cost center belonging to the group.

Cost Center Permissions

Cost center permissions control which cost centers specific people can work with. For example, perhaps the Admissions Office business manager may only access cost centers aligned with that office but your Controller’s Office can access any cost center.

1. Go to Admin > Cost Center Perms.

2. Click Create New Permission.

3. In User enter the username of the Campus Cafe user to grant permission (case sensitive).

4. There are three mutually exclusive ways to provide access:
   A. In Cost Center select a specific cost center to grant access; to grant access to all centers, select *ALL. This option is useful if you’re providing the user access to a select few centers or every center. To provide access to multiple centers through this method, repeat these directions for each individual center the user needs access to.
   B. In Cost Center Group select a cost center group to grant access. This option is useful if you’ve placed many centers in a group. For example, perhaps the Provost Office has centers across multiple departments that you’ve collected into a group called Academic Operations.
   C. In PET# select the Project Expense Tracking code to grant access.

5. Optionally select specific access

   • Can See Salary Records: User can view payroll entries.

   • Can See Revenue Records: User can view revenue entries.

   • Can See Balance Sheet Records: User can view balance sheet entries.

6. Click Add.