Different types of cost often need to behave differently. For Infrastructure costs, recording the budget alone may be adequate; for Salaries, you may want to capture both budget and actuals. Cost categories let you define each type of cost with its own settings — which data series are captured, whether users can edit them, and how variance is signalled — so each behaves to suit your organisation. Custom fields can also be mapped to each cost category.

Cost category settings apply at the category level, not per project, so a category behaves the same way across every initiative that uses it.

Before you start cost groups and cost classifications must already exist in the system, because every cost category is assigned to both.

This article describes the following:

• Creating a cost category
• Cost series settings
• Editing a cost category
• Configuring variance thresholds
• Deleting a cost category

Creating a cost category

Create a category for each type of cost that needs its own settings. You might create a category named "Capital Expenditure" with the Forecast series enabled, and another called "Professional Fees" where forecast is not captured.

To create a cost category:

1. From the upper-right corner, click on your or avatar and then select Administration from the list of options.
2. Select the Cost Groups & Categories tab.
3. Click the New Cost Category button.
4. Type in a name for the category.
5. Select the Cost Group and Cost Classification.
6. If you want to display the cost group on the cost's profile, enable Show Cost Group on Cost Profile.
7. Choose the data series to capture and how they behave — see Cost series settings below.
8. Optionally configure variance thresholds — see Configuring variance thresholds below.
9. Click Save.

Cost series settings

These settings appear on both the create and edit forms, and control which cost values are captured for the category and who may change them.

• Enabled Series: tick each series you want to capture — budget, forecast and actual. At least one series must remain enabled, so the last remaining tick cannot be cleared.
• Prevent Modification: switch this on for a series to stop users editing its values.
• Replace budget with actual values: replaces the data in the budget series with the data entered in the actual series.
• Replace forecast with actual values: replaces the data in the forecast series with the data entered in the actual series.

The two replace options are only available while the series they depend on are enabled.

Editing a cost category

To edit a cost category:

1. Open Administration > Cost Groups & Categories.
2. Find the category in the list and click Edit on its row.
3. Change any of the settings. The name, cost group, cost classification, series settings and variance configuration can all be changed after a category is in use.
4. Click Save.

Changes apply to every initiative already using the category, not just to costs created from that point on.

Turning off a series deletes its values. If you clear a series that was previously enabled, the values held in that series are permanently deleted from every cost in the category, across every initiative. The cost records themselves, their names, owners and dates are kept — it is the values in that one series that are removed. This happens in the background shortly after you save, cannot be undone, and there is no confirmation step beyond the amber warning shown beside the checkbox. Check which initiatives use the category before clearing a series.

Disabling a series also removes it from the column selections of any Project Brief and Status Report widgets built on the category, so those widgets will show fewer columns afterwards.

Configuring variance thresholds

This means each cost category can carry its own definition of healthy spend, so a category where underspend is good and one where hitting the number exactly matters are judged on their own terms.

The Variance section controls whether Actual and Forecast values for costs in this category are colour-coded on the Cost Ledger and the Project Brief cost ledger widget. Its checkbox reads "Visually display the Actual and Forecast variance from Budget on ledgers using a bowler chart."

To configure variance for a cost category:

1. Open the category for editing, as described above.
2. Make sure the Budget series is enabled, along with at least one of Actual or Forecast. Until then the Variance checkbox is unavailable, and hovering it displays "Budget and either Actual or Forecast must be enabled to show variance."
3. Tick Variance.
4. Set Favourable Direction to choose the desired direction of the cost:
   • Lower is Better — coming in under budget is the desired outcome. This is the default for a cost category, and suits most operating expenditure.
   • Higher is Better — exceeding budget is the desired outcome. Suitable for categories such as cost recovery.
   • On Target — matching budget is the desired outcome, and both underspend and overspend are treated as unfavourable. Suitable for pacing a fixed drawdown schedule.
5. Optionally expand Learn More to see an illustration of the direction you have chosen. It starts closed and keeps its state as you change the direction.
6. Set the Thresholds to define the variance bands. Each band is written as a sentence describing the variance from budget:
   • On Track — equal to or less than a single percentage. Default 10%.
   • At Risk — between a lower and an upper percentage, joined by AND. Defaults 11% and 19%.
   • Off Track — equal to or greater than a single percentage. Default 20%.
7. Click Save.

Thresholds accept whole percentages from 0 to 100. They are validated when you save: a missing value, an At Risk lower value above its upper value, or bands that overlap each other produce an in-line message and the page moves to the field concerned. Gaps between bands are permitted and are not flagged. The threshold values stay as you set them if you later change the favourable direction.

Variance is off until you enable it, on both new and existing cost categories. If you later disable one of the series it depends on, variance switches off automatically but your direction and threshold settings are kept — re-enabling the series restores them.

The On Track, At Risk and Off Track labels can be renamed through Custom Translation. Renaming them changes both this configuration screen and the tooltips on the ledger.

Note enabling variance here makes the colouring available. Each user still switches it on for their own ledger view using the Bowler Chart toggle in the ledger's Settings menu.

Deleting a cost category

To delete a cost category:

1. Open Administration > Cost Groups & Categories.
2. Find the category in the list and click Delete on its row.
3. A Confirm Delete dialog opens. Where initiatives are using the category, the dialog lists them under Associated Data so you can see what is affected.
4. Click Delete to confirm, or Cancel to stop.

Statistics are recalculated in the background once the category is removed.

Deleting a category deletes its costs. Every cost recorded against the category is removed from every initiative, along with all associated values including any baseline values. The confirmation dialog states this and lists the affected initiatives — read it before confirming. This cannot be undone.

The last remaining cost category cannot be deleted. Note also that deleting a category removes it from the allowed cost categories of any initiative classification it was mapped to, so check that cost-enabled classifications still have a category available to them.