Cost centers

What it is

A cost center is a cost grouping with a name, a type and an amount. It serves one specific purpose: when you pick the indirect-cost method Cost centers on a recipe's Costs tab, you tick the centers you want and the recipe adds up their fixed amounts as its indirect cost.

• Path: https://app.areacacao.com/costs/centers
• How to get there: sidebar → FORMULATION → Costs → sixth tile, Cost centers.
• Screen title: Cost centers — "Define and manage your business cost centers to allocate direct, indirect and elaboration expenses."
• Credits: none. It is a CRUD screen, no AI.

The screen

With none created, you get the empty state: "You haven't created any cost center yet" — "Cost centers group your direct, indirect and elaboration expenses so they can be allocated across your recipes.", with a Create first center button.

Once there are centers, they are grouped into sections by type, always in this order: Direct, Indirect, Elaboration. Each section header carries its count ("N cost centers"), and empty sections are not rendered.

Each row shows the name and, beneath it, its two figures: Fixed amount and % of total. A zero value renders as a dash (—), not as 0.

Amounts are always displayed in euros, regardless of the currency you have configured in Costs.

To the right of each row there are two actions: the pencil (edit) and the bin (delete). In the header, New center creates one.

Creating or editing a center

The form — New cost center / Edit cost center — asks for four things: "Assign a name, a type and how it contributes to cost allocation."

Each type comes with its own description in the form:

• Direct — "Costs directly attributable to a product (raw materials, packaging)."
• Indirect — "Overhead costs not attributable to a single product (rent, utilities)."
• Elaboration — "Production process costs (labor, equipment)."

Deleting asks for confirmation: "Are you sure you want to delete this cost center? This action cannot be undone."

How it's used on a recipe

On the recipe's Costs tab, inside the indirect-cost block, there is an Allocation method dropdown. One of its options is Cost centers. Picking it reveals a checkbox list — under the label Select cost centers — with all of your centers, each showing its name and fixed amount.

That recipe's indirect cost then becomes the sum of the fixed amounts of the centers you tick. Nothing more: it is a flat amount added to the recipe.

If you have no centers, the list shows: "No cost centers configured. Choose another method (e.g. '% of direct cost') or register your fixed costs in Costs → Business expenses."

The center selection is stored per recipe, not here: two recipes can use different centers.

What it does NOT do

This screen is narrower than its own description suggests. Specifically:

• The "% of total" field is used in no calculation. It is stored, shown in the list, and captured in recipe version snapshots, but no cost calculation reads it. Only Fixed amount affects cost.
• The "Type" field doesn't affect the calculation either. It only groups this screen visually. The selector inside the recipe offers every center regardless of type: a center marked Direct still gets added as an indirect cost if you tick it there.
• It allocates nothing by itself. It does not spread a total across recipes or units: the fixed amount you tick is added as-is to every recipe that selects it.
• It is not connected to Fixed business costs. They are two independent tables: recording an expense there does not create a center here, and vice versa. For most cases the % of direct cost method, or the one based on your business overheads, is more direct than maintaining centers by hand.
• Express costing never writes to it. That assistant seeds rates, business overheads and a percentage-based indirect cost; it never creates cost centers.
• It has no currency of its own. The screen formats amounts in euros, fixed.
• It uses no credits and no AI.

Next steps