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Expenses and Costs:Cost Unit

Last Updated:Jul 13, 2023

A cost center is a basic unit that is used by an enterprise to manage the costs of cloud resources. You can use cost centers to manage department expenses and project expenses.

Actions

You can view the hierarchy tree of cost centers and the distribution of resources. As shown in the following figure, on the left side of the Cost Centers page, the hierarchy tree of cost centers is displayed. Meanwhile, on the right side of the page, a list of resources included in a cost center is displayed.

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  • On the left side of the Cost Centers page, you can perform several actions on the hierarchy tree, such as adding, editing, and removing nodes or cost centers.

  • On the right side of the Cost Centers page, you can perform a number of actions on resources, such as removing, transferring, and allocating resources. In addition, resources can be manually or automatically allocated.

1. Add a cost center

On the hierarchy tree of cost centers, you can move the pointer over a cost center and click the Add (+) icon to add a subordinate cost center.

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In the Add Cost Center dialog box, enter the name of the new cost center. In general, a cost center is named after a department or an accounting unit. The name of a cost center must be unique under the same account.

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2. Edit or remove a cost center

On the hierarchy tree of cost centers, you can move the pointer over a cost center and click the Edit icon or the Delete (-) icon to edit or remove the cost center.

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  • New names must follow the naming rules. You cannot remove a cost center with subordinate cost centers configured or with resources located.

  • Note: After removing items, such as subordinate cost centers, resources, and auto-assign rules that are applied to a cost center, you can remove the cost center.

3. View the list of cost centers

All available resources that are located in the current cost center are displayed on the list.

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  • Account

  • Resource Group: filters applicable

  • Product: filters applicable

  • Payment Method: filters applicable

  • Status: includes Normal and Released.

  • Tag: filters applicable

  • Instance ID/Name

  • Related Resources: Available resources for an instance are displayed.

  • Actions

    • [remove]: removes a resource from a cost center. This action only removes the relationship between a resource and a cost center.

    • [Transfer]: For more information, see Allocate resources.