What should I consider when creating a Cost Center?

A Cost Center (CC) is an area within a school/unit that owns a subset of revenues and/or expenses. They report funds available and manage multiple fund sources. The legacy Oracle term Organization most closely translates to Cost Center in Workday Financials terms, but some schools and units have broken their organizations into smaller section to take advantage of Workday's increased cost center functionality. Therefore, you may find that one Oracle org is split into multiple Cost Centers in Workday Financials.  

Here are some things to consider when creating a Cost Center:

  1. Budgeting happens at the CC level.
  2. Employees should be assigned to the CC, for the most part; if no employees are assigned to it, using the Program worktag instead might make more sense.
  3. Revenue and expenses will be reported separately in the CC.
  4. Consider the approval level: Will expenses route to the same people? If not, CCs may need to be split up.
  5. Consider your reports as you plan your Cost Center structure.
  6. Specific expense categories (such as professional development) don't need to be separated; that information can be captured through the spend hierarchy.