Expense Center

An expense center, also known as a cost center, is a department, division, or unit within an organization that does not directly generate revenue but incurs costs. Expense centers are essential for tracking and managing costs within an organization and help to allocate resources, control expenses, and evaluate the efficiency of various operations.

Expense centers can include:

1. Support departments: These departments, such as human resources, IT, finance, and administration, provide essential support services to revenue-generating divisions but do not generate income directly.
2. Research and development (R&D): The R&D department is responsible for creating and developing new products or services, which may generate revenue in the future but incur costs during the development process.
3. Production departments: Manufacturing and production units are responsible for creating products but do not sell them directly to customers. Instead, they incur costs related to materials, labor, and overhead, which are then allocated to the products and accounted for in the organization's cost structure.
4. Quality control: Quality control departments focus on ensuring the quality of products or services, incurring costs related to inspections, testing, and monitoring.
5. Marketing: Although marketing efforts contribute to revenue generation, they do not directly produce income. Instead, marketing departments incur costs related to advertising, promotions, and other activities designed to support sales.

Expense centers play a crucial role in financial management and budgeting within an organization. By tracking and monitoring the costs associated with each expense center, management can identify areas of inefficiency, allocate resources more effectively, and implement cost control measures. Managers of expense centers are typically evaluated based on their ability to control costs and operate efficiently, rather than on their ability to generate revenue.

It is important to differentiate between expense centers and profit centers, which are organizational units responsible for generating revenue and contributing to the organization's profitability. While expense centers focus on managing and controlling costs, profit centers are evaluated based on their ability to generate profits and contribute to the organization's overall financial performance.

See Also

• IT Strategy (Information Technology Strategy)
• IT Governance
• Enterprise Architecture
• Chief Information Officer (CIO)
• IT Sourcing (Information Technology Sourcing)
• IT Operations (Information Technology Operations)
• E-Strategy