About Cost Categories

When Cost Administrators add costs, they must select a cost category for the cost. Organizing costs by enables you to:

Roll up and prorate costs to categories meaningful to your organization, such as the line items on your cash flow or income statements, so that you can these costs. Cost categories include a selection for the Assigned To - Rolls Up To - Prorates To value you assign to the cost. This selection enables you to define, for each cost having this cost category, how to roll up and prorate the cost for reporting and chargeback.

Group and summarize costs for reporting and chargeback. When managing costs and generating reports and chargeback, you can restrict the costs by cost category, enabling you to work with only specific cost categories.

Associate cost categories with cost classes and super classes that roll up cost categories to more general groupings. You first define a cost class and then add cost categories for it.

Associate cost categories with that group related costs within the category.

Associate cost categories with a country and VAT percentage that the system uses to calculate VAT costs. This feature is enabled if you are using the ARCHIBUS VAT and multicurrency features. See Defining Default VAT Percentages by Cost Category and Country.

The default cost categories act as a starting point for developing your own cost categories. The default cost categories are:

Cost Category	Cost Class	Cost Type
RENT - BASE RENT	RENT EXPENSE	BASE RENT
LEASEHOLD IMPROVEMENT	LEASEHOLD IMPROVEMENT	LEASEHOLD IMP.
TAX - TAX	TAX EXPENSE	TAX
TAX - CHARGEBACK	TAX INCOME	TAX

Note: For Windows client/server deployments, some summaries and reports depend on the default Cost Category records, and some calculated fields also depend on the default Cost Types. For this reason, if you use any of these Window client/server reports and you accidentally delete these default Cost Categories or Types, you should reinstate them.

The following information is helpful when defining your cost categories:

Cost Classes

When you create a cost category, you assign it to a cost class. Cost classes enable Cost Administrators to search for costs by class when they are managing costs using the Cost Wizard, and when selecting costs to report on. Cost classes can optionally be associated with super classes, the most general level of classification of a cost. For example, you could define a class of Rent Income and associate it with the super class of Income.

Cost Type

When you add a cost category, you can optionally give the category a that groups related costs within the category. When working in the Cost Wizard, you can select costs by cost type to show only those costs.

For example, if you assign the cost type 'Base Rent' to the 'Rent - Base Rent' cost category, you can examine all costs having the Base Rent cost type together in the Cost Wizard. This enables you to make finer distinctions, such as viewing only Base Rent cost types, and not costs classified with other Rent - Base Rent cost types, such as Rent - Other Rent.

The cost type value defaults to N/A, which indicates a cost with no specialized roll-up category. The default cost types provide a starting point for developing your own cost categories. The default cost categories are:

The Assigned To - Rolls Up To - Prorates To Selection

When you define a cost category, you select a value for the Assigned To - Rolls Up To - Prorates To selection. This selection controls the roll-up and proration strategies for charging back costs to properties, leases, buildings, and departments. This information is used when you generate chargeback costs.

Field Component	Description	Choices	How It Works
Assigned To	Identifies the item to which the original cost must be assigned in order for the chargeback action to properly charge back the cost. This is the item (building, property, lease, or account) the cost is added for.	All Leases Buildings Properties.	If the value for this portion of the field is: "All": "All' includes costs with any assignment (leases, buildings, properties, or accounts). It is used to directly bill, but not to charge back costs. "Leases", "Buildings", or "Properties": When entering costs using the Cost Wizard, you select the lease, building, or property the cost is for. The Cost Wizard then presents only cost categories that match your selection; that is, cost categories that have an Assigned To value that matches the item you selected, or that have an Assigned To value of All. Note: For costs associated with accounts, you must select a cost that has an "Assigned To" value of "All". You can directly bill, but not charge back these costs.
Rolls Up To	Identifies the item for which a rolled up chargeback Scheduled Cost record should be created for this type of cost. This is useful for reporting on costs that you track or incur at a lower level, but want to sum up to a higher level.	None Buildings Properties	If the value for this portion of the field is: "None": The cost does not roll up. "Buildings or Properties": A Scheduled Cost record that rolls up the costs for this cost category is created for either the building or the property, depending on your selection. For instance, you might denote a maintenance cost category as rolling up a building cost to properties. You then enter your costs for maintenance for each building and assign them the same cost category that rolls up to properties. For each property, the chargeback routine will sum all maintenance costs having this cost category for all buildings assigned to the property, and then record these costs in one Scheduled Cost record assigned to the property.
Prorates To	Identifies the item to which costs should be proportionately distributed, that is, for billing purposes to which item should this cost be charged back.	Bill Direct Leases Buildings Departments	If the value for this portion of the field is: "Bill Direct"- The chargeback action does not generate any chargeback Scheduled Cost records. This cost category is not charged back, rather it is billed directly to the item it was reported for. "None"- the chargeback routine generates rolled up Scheduled Cost records only. "Leases", "Buildings", or "Departments" - the chargeback routine takes the total and prorates it back to the given building, department, or lease, based on the relative area percentages of these entities, by assigning the generated Scheduled Cost records to buildings, departments, or leases.

Field Component

Description

Choices

How It Works

Assigned To

Identifies the item to which the original cost must be assigned in order for the chargeback action to properly charge back the cost. This is the item (building, property, lease, or account) the cost is added for.

All

Leases

Buildings

Properties.

If the value for this portion of the field is:

"All": "All' includes costs with any assignment (leases, buildings, properties, or accounts). It is used to directly bill, but not to charge back costs.

"Leases", "Buildings", or "Properties": When entering costs using the Cost Wizard, you select the lease, building, or property the cost is for. The Cost Wizard then presents only cost categories that match your selection; that is, cost categories that have an Assigned To value that matches the item you selected, or that have an Assigned To value of All.

Note: For costs associated with accounts, you must select a cost that has an "Assigned To" value of "All". You can directly bill, but not charge back these costs.

Rolls Up To

Identifies the item for which a rolled up chargeback Scheduled Cost record should be created for this type of cost. This is useful for reporting on costs that you track or incur at a lower level, but want to sum up to a higher level.

None

Buildings

Properties

If the value for this portion of the field is:

"None": The cost does not roll up.

"Buildings or Properties": A Scheduled Cost record that rolls up the costs for this cost category is created for either the building or the property, depending on your selection. For instance, you might denote a maintenance cost category as rolling up a building cost to properties. You then enter your costs for maintenance for each building and assign them the same cost category that rolls up to properties. For each property, the chargeback routine will sum all maintenance costs having this cost category for all buildings assigned to the property, and then record these costs in one Scheduled Cost record assigned to the property.

Prorates To

Identifies the item to which costs should be proportionately distributed, that is, for billing purposes to which item should this cost be charged back.

Bill Direct

Leases

Buildings

Departments

If the value for this portion of the field is:

"Bill Direct"- The chargeback action does not generate any chargeback Scheduled Cost records. This cost category is not charged back, rather it is billed directly to the item it was reported for.

"None"- the chargeback routine generates rolled up Scheduled Cost records only.

"Leases", "Buildings", or "Departments" - the chargeback routine takes the total and prorates it back to the given building, department, or lease, based on the relative area percentages of these entities, by assigning the generated Scheduled Cost records to buildings, departments, or leases.

Real Estate Portfolio Management / Cost Administration / Business Process Owner

About Cost Categories

Cost Classes

Cost Type

The Assigned To - Rolls Up To - Prorates To Selection