Introduction
Cost Centers within Empeon Workforce are designed to assist with general ledger tracking and provide clarity on how labor costs are allocated.
On their own, Cost Centers simply identify the categories where labor is performed. While they can be customized to fit the unique needs of any organization, common examples include Departments, Positions, and Locations.
Once established, these Cost Centers can be assigned to employees, so that each time an employee is paid, Empeon Workforce recognizes the assigned Cost Center as where the labor is being performed. This allows organizations to gain valuable insights into the costs associated with each labor allocation.
The system can be configured with up to five Cost Centers, tailored to the organization's preferences and the categories they wish to allocate labor toward. During implementation, Empeon collaborates with the organization in order to determine which Cost Centers should be established.
To view and maintain the Cost Centers that are set up, navigate to the Payroll section within the Company tab, and select the Cost Center Card.
The default Cost Centers, if nothing has been customized, are Department, Location, Division, Position, and Floor/Unit.
Within each Cost Center is where specific items for the Cost Center are built out. For example, the Cost Center for Department is where codes for the organization's various departments are established. It is these codes within each Cost Center that can be assigned to employees in order to facilitate accurate labor tracking when they are paid.
Cost Center Mapping
An added dynamic of Cost Centers is the ability to "map" them to Job Info, which tracks similar information but from a straightforward HR record-keeping perspective. Job Info encompasses nine predefined HR-related categories, including all five default Cost Center categories (Department, Location, Division, Position, and Floor/Unit).
If tracking this information for both HR and payroll reporting is necessary, Cost Center mapping can be activated to link the relevant Job Info category to the corresponding Cost Center. Cost Center mapping eliminates the need to set up and maintain both Cost Centers and Job Info. Instead, maintaining Job Info will suffice, as the corresponding Cost Centers will be updated automatically due to the mapping.
When Cost Centers are mapped, it will appear with a green icon next the Cost Center.
For any questions or inquiries about Cost Center mapping, please reach out to Customer Support. For more insight on Job Info within Empeon Workforce, please refer to Empeon's article What Is job Info?
Maintaining Cost Center Codes
Maintaining Cost Centers depends on whether or not mapping is in place. When Cost Centers are mapped, any additions or updates must be made within the corresponding Job Info category, not directly within the Cost Centers themselves.
If the Cost Center is unmapped, Cost Center Codes can be maintained accordingly with the option to add new codes via import or manual entry.
When manually entering a new Cost Center Code, all that is required the Code itself, however there are additional fields that can be entered as well:
- Name - Since the Cost Center Code can only be 10 characters, this represents the full name of the Cost Center Code being set up.
- Address - If relevant, an address associated with the Cost Center Code, it can be entered here.
- Worker's Comp Code (WCC) - Mainly used with Positions, if Worker's Comp Codes and/or Rates are being tracked within Empeon Workforce, here is where the associating WCC can be associated.
- Location - This is a specialized field used for custom compliance calculations in certain industries. If it is not being used as part of your initial implementation, it can be ignored.
Be sure to click "Save" to finalize the Cost Center Code setup. After a Cost Center Code is added, it can then be assigned to an employee on their Employee Profile. For additional information on this process, please refer to Empeon's article Assigning Job Info & Cost Centers.