Cost Objects

A cost object is the final, or lowest, level at which the system calculates or tracks costs or revenues. For example, a cost object might be a customer or an item number. You must identify the object, set up the method by which the system tracks the costs, and define the AAIs and flex accounting rules to report on financial transactions for which you track costs or revenues.

Setting up cost objects allows you to define the kind of data that you want to analyze and how you want to analyze it. You can set up four user-defined cost object types and one cost object type that is defined in the Item Master table (F4101). Examples of cost object types include customers, suppliers, and product lines.

You use cost object types to gather information about costs or revenues. You can then use the information to determine how the costs affect your business, or the source of the revenue. For example, suppose you want to analyze the amount that you are spending on postage and freight by customer. You set up a cost object type for customers. Each time that freight or postage expense is paid for a customer, the customer's address book number is used in the Cost Object field in the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Accounts Payable system. The entry in the Cost Object field lets you track the freight and postage expenses for your customers.

You can define additional cost object types at any time. You should carefully consider the types of costs that you want to analyze to ensure the consistency of the data that you capture.

You can populate cost objects by using one of the following methods:

• AAIs and flex accounting rules set up for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Advanced Cost Accounting transactions in other systems, such as JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Work Orders, JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Sales Orders, and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Fixed Assets.

• Direct manual input into an accounting entry, such as accounts payable or general accounting.

• Custom programming.