Costing and chargebacks overview

BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management uses the Cost module in Mid Tier  interface to track costs associated with CIs. BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management also uses the charge-back functionality in the cost module. charge-backs are roll ups of the costs that have been incurred over a period and involved in the various cost centers in a company. By using the charge-back component, the finance manager can view the charge-back entries, adjust the costs, and send invoices to the individual cost centers.

IT roles for asset accounting

When working with BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management, configuration administrators or finance managers are involved in asset accounting. IT roles can vary from organization to organization, and in some companies, one person might fulfill several roles.

Accounting information

IT organizations also need accounting information to manage, calculate, and reduce the total cost of ownership for their IT CI portfolio.

The charge-back cycle

The configuration administrator and the finance manager complete the tasks listed in the following table when working with BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management.

Cost centers

Administrators use cost centers to track costs within an organization. They use cost centers to group expenses by various departments. To further divide and group the expenses, you can split cost centers. You can split the costs equally or in percentages. In BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management, you can have only one level of split cost centers. For example, if you split a source cost center called C1 into two target cost centers called C-1 and C-2, you cannot split C-1 and C-2 into additional target cost centers. For more information, see Tracking-costs-and-charge-backs.

You can associate the following items to a cost center:

• CIs
• Contracts
• Change requests

Charge-backs

Finance managers generate charge-back invoices for the cost of the assets or services that are used by the departments in an organization. The finance manager takes the following steps to generate charge-back invoices for a specific period:

1. Review the costs and generate a preliminary charge-back invoice.
2. Send the charge-back invoices to the appropriate departments.
3. After receiving the approval of the charge-back invoices from the departments, send the charge-back invoices to the accounting department to post them to the general ledger.

finance managers can also charge an additional amount to cover the cost of their services and other indirect costs. This additional amount is called a charge-back percentage. For example, an IT department orders a $2,000 laptop for an employee. The IT department generates a charge-back invoice for the employee's department for $2,000. and adds a charge-back percentage of 10% to the purchase price to cover the expense of purchasing and configuring the equipment. Therefore, the charge-back invoice to the other department would be $2,200. For more information, see Generating-charge-back-reports-and-invoices.

Time periods

Time periods are the regular intervals during which you review costs and create charge-back invoices. You work with the application administrator to configure BMC Helix ITSM: Asset Management with the appropriate time periods. Time periods can be set as quarters or months. They can also be set so that you can manually determine the start date and end date for each period.

At the end of the period, the finance manager generates charge-back invoices and closes the period. After the period is closed, cost entries for that period can no longer be used for future charge-backs. As a result, costs are not charged to departments more than once.

Instructions for classic interfaces