## What a cost center is for

Accounts and cost centers answer two different questions. An **account** says what *kind* of cost
it is — surveyor, repair, spare parts. A **cost center** says what it was *for* — a damage case,
a dry docking, a project. Both are recorded on every document, so both questions can be answered:
*"What did this case cost us?"* and *"What have surveyors cost us in total?"*

Typical uses are insurance cases, dry dockings, conversions and any other undertaking whose costs
you want to keep together across several accounts.

Cost centers are optional. If you do not use them, nothing changes in your daily work.

## Creating a cost center

Cost centers are created in **Administration → Accounting → Cost Center**. See
[Accounting](/Administration/Configuration/Accounting/) for the details.

Two things are worth knowing before you start:

- **Name and code are both mandatory** and both must be unique. If you assign a vessel, the code
  must be unique per vessel.
- **The code field holds 10 characters.** Longer reference numbers do not fit. Keep the full
  reference in the name and use a short abbreviation as the code.

Assigning a vessel is optional. If you leave it empty, the cost center is available for all
vessels.

## Assigning a cost center

**While creating a document** — requisitions, requests for quotation and purchase orders all
contain a **Cost Center** field. The selection list shows all cost centers that are not closed.

**Afterwards, including after an order has been sent:**

1. Select the order in the list
2. Choose **Additional → Cost Center → Assign Cost Center** (**Clear Cost Center** removes it
   again)
3. Pick the cost center and confirm

The same is available through **Accounting Details → Change Cost Center**, which uses a separate
right. This allows you to control separately who may still change orders that have already been
sent.

What to expect:

- **The assignment is voluntary.** No check rejects a document that has no cost center.
- **It can be changed at any time**, including after an order has been sent. The change is passed
  through to the invoice and the booking, and the invoice records a history entry with the old
  and the new value. Assigning a cost center after the fact is a normal way of working, not a
  workaround.
- **It travels the whole chain:** requisition → request for quotation → quotation per supplier →
  purchase order → invoice → booking.
- On board, the field can be hidden through a configuration setting if assigning cost centers is
  meant to be an office task.

## Reviewing costs

**Purchase → Reports → Cost Center Overview** (requires its own right) lists every document
belonging to one cost center. Select the cost center and choose **Load**.

Shown per document | {class="compact"}
---|---
Reference number, title, document type, status | what the document is
Account, cost department, amount in home currency | how it is booked
Invoicing status (for purchase orders) | not invoiced, partly invoiced, fully invoiced

- **Included:** purchase orders, requests for quotation and requisitions. Rejected documents are
  left out.
- **Not included:** invoices and bookings. There is also no total beneath the list — this
  overview is a document list.
- **For totals, use the budget analysis.** There the cost center is a reporting dimension across
  bookings, with a totals row, and it can be combined with the account. This is where *"all costs
  for case X, broken down by type of cost"* actually comes out. The cost center is also available
  as a column in Invoice Registration.

## Closing a cost center

When the undertaking is finished, close the cost center using **Close**. It then disappears from
the selection lists in Purchase but remains in every report, so past documents stay complete.

Deleting is only possible while a cost center has never been used. For anything that has been
worked with, closing is the right way.

## What cost centers do not do

- **There is no automatic link between a document and the underlying case.** The connection is
  made by assigning the cost center, which depends on the diligence of whoever creates the
  document.
- **Budget checking is unaffected.** Budgets are held against account, period and vessel; the
  cost center plays no part in it. Documents carrying a cost center are checked against the
  budget exactly as any other.

*[PO]: Purchase Order  
*[AZA]: local folder
*[(PO]: Purchase Order  
*[RQ]: Requisition  
*[(RQ]: Requisition  
*[RfQ]: Request for Quotation  
*[(RfQ]: Request for Quotation  
*[SO]: Service Order  
*[(SO]: Service Order  
*[SQ]: Service Requisition  
*[(SQ]: Service Requisition  
*[SRfQ]: Service Request for Quotation  
*[OoB]: Open on Board  
*[(OoB]: Open on Board 
*[ART]: Average Running Time (operation hours per day) 
*[MC]: Master Contract
*[ADS]: Advantage Database Server (database engine used in previous versions of the ZeeBORN software)
*[.replic]: file extension for replication files (aka data transfer files)