Cost centres: KOST1 and KOST2

Cost centres (Kostenstellen) show where costs and revenue belong inside your GmbH or UG: a team, a project, a location. Norman uses the two DATEV dimensions KOST1 and KOST2, so a booking can carry up to two cost centres. They come from the same list, so you can use KOST1 for one dimension, for example the location, and KOST2 for another, for example the project.

Cost centres do not change accounts, amounts or VAT. Your tax returns and the E-Bilanz stay exactly the same; cost centres add a way to analyse your books. They are part of the Ledger (Hauptbuch) for companies on SKR03 or SKR04.

Set up your cost centres

1. Open the Ledger (Hauptbuch) and choose Cost centres.
2. Enter a Code and a Name and choose Add cost centre. Norman saves the code in capital letters, and each code exists once per company.
3. To rename a cost centre, choose Edit.

If your tax advisor keeps a cost centre plan in DATEV, use the same codes. Once a booking uses a cost centre, its code can no longer change, because it already appears in postings and exports. The name stays editable.

You cannot delete a cost centre. To retire one, switch off Active:

• Norman no longer offers it for new bookings and postings.
• Bookings and postings that use it keep it, and the Ledger filters still find it.
• To use it again, switch Active back on.

Assign cost centres to a booking

1. Open the booking in Accounting → Operations.
2. Under Details, choose Cost centre (KOST1) and, if you use a second dimension, Cost centre (KOST2).
3. Choose Save. Norman carries the cost centres into the booking's postings in the Ledger.

Good to know:

• Split bookings: after + Split into multiple items, every line has its own KOST1 and KOST2. One purchase can then belong to two projects.
• Bookings from issued invoices: everything else comes from the invoice, but you set the category, notes and cost centres on the booking itself. When the bank payment arrives and takes the booking over, the cost centres move with it.
• Finalized bookings: set cost centres before you finalize a booking. After that, the fields are read-only like the rest of the booking.

Cost centres on manual postings

A manual posting in the Journal has the same two fields. A Storno copies the cost centres of the posting it reverses. To give a saved manual posting a different cost centre, correct it like any other mistake: with a Storno and a new posting, see manual postings and Storno.

Analyse the books by cost centre

1. In Journal, the KOST column shows the cost centres of each posting. Choose a cost centre in the filter next to the tax treatment to see only its postings.
2. In Accounts (SuSa), the same filter limits debit totals, credit totals and balances to the postings of that cost centre. The postings you open for an account are filtered too.

The filter finds a posting whether the cost centre sits in KOST1 or KOST2. The cost centre filters appear as soon as your company has at least one cost centre.

A filtered view shows only postings that carry the cost centre. Postings without one, for example opening balances, payroll or bookings you did not allocate, are not in it, so the filtered totals do not add up to the result of the whole company.

DATEV export and import

• Export DATEV in the Journal writes the codes into the KOST1 and KOST2 columns of the posting stack. Postings without a cost centre leave both columns empty, so an export without cost centres looks exactly as before. See review the Ledger and export your books.
• The DATEV import in Opening & migration reads KOST1 and KOST2 from the posting stack and the opening balances. Norman creates a cost centre for each code it does not know yet and names it after the code. Rename them afterwards under Cost centres.
• Norman exports no quantities for cost accounting (Kost-Menge). That column stays empty.

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