Track profit by cost centre

Cost centres let you see income and expenses per team, project or activity, inside one branch or across the business. They label lines; they do not change any amounts, taxes or balances.

Before you start

• Creating and editing cost centres needs Set up Books and lock periods. Anyone with View Books and reports can read the report.

Create a cost centre

1. Open Books → Cost centres.
2. Under Add cost centre, type the Name and, if you like, the Name in other language.
3. Keep Active ticked and select Save.

To rename one or stop using it, select Edit, change the name or clear Active, and select Save.

Assign it

On a draft invoice, credit note, supplier bill, expense or a new journal entry, choose a Cost centre on each line that should count towards it, then save as usual.

See profit by cost centre

1. Open Books → Profit by cost centre.
2. Choose From and Through (up to 36 months) and a Branch, and select Show.
3. Read income, expenses and profit per centre, with the previous period and the same period last year. Unassigned holds everything without a centre.
4. Select a centre to open its profit and loss, then an account to open its ledger.
5. Download the page as CSV or Excel.

Good to know

• Only income and expense lines carry a centre. VAT, amounts owed and payment lines stay unassigned.
• Unassigned also holds older entries and entries posted by other apps, such as HR & Payroll and Bookings, which have no centre.
• Cost centres are never deleted. An inactive centre keeps its name and history, and its name cannot be reused.
• You can have up to 500 cost centres, active and inactive together.
• Reversals keep the original centre, even an inactive one. Scheduled journal copies and recurring invoices and expenses need the centre to be active.
• Bank entries, budgets and fixed assets have no cost-centre field.
• Changing only the centre on an entry waiting for approval makes it a new request: see Posting approvals.
• Centres are not shown on the customer's link or printed document.
• For profit per branch, see Run financial reports.