Cost centres and budget periods

Overview

Two pieces of master data underpin budgeting, both in Settings → Module settings → Purchasing: cost centres (who owns spend) and budget periods (the fiscal windows spend is authorised in). Viewing budgets needs the "View budgets" permission; changing anything here needs "Manage budgets".

Cost centres

A cost centre is the internal owner of a budget — a team or project. Every requisition names exactly one; purchase orders deliberately carry none. Click Add cost centre and set:

• Code and Name — e.g. CC-100, Engineering.
• Budgets in — the currency this centre's budgets are denominated in. It locks once the centre holds budget, because every ledger entry is denominated in it.
• Owner — a real person. The owner matters beyond labeling: approval workflows can route a step to the cost centre owner of whatever requisition is being approved.

Cost centres are never deleted, only deactivated — history stays whole. Requisitions can't be raised until at least one active cost centre exists.

Budget periods

Periods are org-wide, so "FY26-Q1" means one thing across the company. Click Add period and give it a code, name, and start/end dates.

• A requisition finds its budget through the open period covering its need-by date, so open periods may not overlap — the app refuses an overlap and names the colliding period.
• Closing a period stops new allocations and reservations but never touches money already committed — open orders don't disappear at rollover. See The budget ledger, period close, and rules.