Project Cost Center — Workflow
Overview
The Project Cost Center is a read-only financial dashboard. It has no approval pipeline, no status transitions, and no record lifecycle of its own. Its role is to aggregate, convert, and display financial data that originates in other SARA modules, so that project managers and finance teams can assess the economic health of a project at any moment.
No workflow pipeline
This feature does not have a multi-step workflow. There are no records to create, approve, or reject here. All data shown is generated by activity in other modules.
Roles involved
- Project manager / finance reviewer — Selects projects and reads the cost center dashboard to monitor budget consumption, cost breakdown, and profitability.
How data flows into the dashboard
The cost center pulls live data from the following modules each time a project is searched. No data is cached or stored by the cost center itself.
| Category shown | Source module | What is counted |
|---|---|---|
| Budget | Projects — Budget Administration | Static budget items or dynamic weekly/bi-weekly rates configured per project |
| Income (received) | Customer POs (CPOs) | Sum of payments recorded against CPOs linked to the project |
| Income (potential) | Customer POs (CPOs) | Full CPO value (amount + taxes) regardless of payment status |
| Supplier POs | Purchase Orders / Requisitions | Approved supplier POs linked to the project via requisition budget nodes |
| SPOs – specialized services | Purchase Orders / Requisitions | Supplier POs from specialized-service requisition lines |
| Logistics | Logistics | SPOs categorized as logistic origin, broken down into stays, travel, vehicles, and extras |
| Refunds | Refunds | Approved refunds assigned to the project |
| Hours | Timesheets + Rates & Salaries | Logged hours per collaborator per week, multiplied by their hourly rate; extra hours above threshold billed at the extra-hours multiplier |
| Salary | Rates & Salaries + Timesheets | Salary per pay period divided into a daily rate, multiplied by days worked on the project |
| Per diem (other) | Rates & Salaries + Timesheets | Per diem viatic rate × days worked on the project |
| Per diem (Sivale) | Collaborator per diem | Individual Sivale charges linked to the project |
All amounts are converted to USD at the exchange rate applicable on the date of the record (or today's rate for salary and hourly rates).
Key calculations
Total cost
Total cost is the sum of all eight cost categories:
Total cost = SPOs + SPOs (specialized) + Logistics + Hours + Refunds + Salary + Per diem (other) + Per diem (Sivale)
Profit
Profit = Income received − Total cost
Displayed with a percentage relative to income received. Shown as Loss with the percentage hidden when income received is zero.
Potential profit
Potential profit = Potential income (full CPO value) − Total cost
Not shown when the project uses a dynamic budget.
Budget remaining
Budget remaining = Total budget − Total cost
Displayed as a percentage of total budget, color-coded:
| Budget remaining | Color | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ≥ 31% | Green | Budget is healthy |
| 16–30% | Orange | Budget is tightening |
| 0–15% | Red | Budget critically low or exceeded |
Profit margins follow the same thresholds (green ≥ 30%, orange 20–29%, red < 20%).
Static vs. dynamic budget
Projects can be configured with one of two budget modes:
- Static budget — Fixed budget items defined in Budget Administration per project node. Each item has a currency and amount.
- Dynamic budget — Budget calculated from weekly or bi-weekly staffing rates. The total displayed is the sum of all configured rate-period totals.
The mode is set in the project record (dynamic_budget flag). The cost center reads this flag and renders the appropriate budget display.
Exceptions & operational notes
- Records excluded from cost counts: SPOs with status Cancelled, Rejected, or similar terminal negative statuses are filtered out. Only active or completed SPOs contribute to cost totals.
- Hours with zero or negative values are excluded from the hours calculation.
- Currency conversion uses SARA's currency exchange rate tables. If no rate is found for a historical date, the conversion may fall back to the current rate.
- The cost center can display multiple projects simultaneously — one panel per project is rendered, allowing side-by-side project comparison.
Permissions
Permissions
Access and actions are permission-driven. See: Permissions