Cost Centres
Cost centres are billing units used to track and control spend independently from your org-chart departments. A user can belong to a department (e.g. Engineering) and a cost centre (e.g. Engineering APAC) at the same time.
Cost centres vs departments
| Departments | Cost Centres | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Org structure, reporting hierarchy | Financial accountability, budget tracking |
| Used in policy scoping | Yes | Yes |
| User assignment | One per user | One per user |
| Approval chain override | Yes | Yes (takes priority over department chain) |
Manage cost centres
Go to Admin → Cost Centres in the sidebar.
The list shows all cost centres in your workspace with their monthly budgets.
Create a cost centre
Click + New cost centre.
| Field | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Yes | e.g. Engineering APAC, Sales SG |
| Monthly budget (SGD) | No | Informational — used in budget reports |
Click Create. The cost centre is immediately available for user assignment and policy scoping.
Assign a cost centre to a user
- Go to Admin → Users
- Click the pencil icon on a user row to open the edit modal
- Select the Cost Centre from the dropdown — only designated cost centres appear here
- Click Save
Cost centres can also be set during bulk CSV import via the cost_centre_id column.
Scope a policy to cost centres
When creating or editing a policy, the Applies to section lets you scope it to specific cost centres:
- Open Admin → Policies and click into a policy (or create a new one)
- Scroll to the Applies to section
- Check the cost centres this policy should apply to
- Leave unchecked to apply company-wide
When a policy is scoped to a cost centre, it only fires for expenses submitted by users assigned to that cost centre.
Approval chain override
If a cost-centre-scoped policy defines an approval chain, it overrides the department chain for users in that cost centre. The company-wide locked steps are still enforced.
Priority: cost-centre chain → department chain → company-wide chain
Use cost-centre chains when different billing units have different sign-off requirements — for example, the Singapore sales team requires regional manager approval while the global policy only requires a direct manager.
Demo cost centres (seeded workspace)
| Cost Centre | Monthly budget |
|---|---|
| Engineering APAC | SGD 15,000 |
| Sales SG | SGD 8,000 |
| Marketing SEA | SGD 5,000 |