Cost categories

Cost categories are a way to tag costs (from purchase invoices or credit invoice items) and thereby obtain valuable analyses about which areas incur costs.

Use cases for cost categories

Examples of common cost categories Media, salaries, office costs, freelancer art, freelancer development, image licenses, travel expenses, artists' social insurance

Analyzing cost categories can, for example, help decide whether it is worthwhile to hire staff for services that were previously provided by freelancers or to allocate ongoing costs for rent, office, or vehicle fleet to individual employees. Likewise, based on cost categories one can consider whether it might make sense to commission a different travel agency or to outsource services that have so far been provided in-house.

Renaming cost categories

If categories are renamed, this also applies retroactively to all items assigned to that category.

Analysis of cost categories

Cost category analysis

Percentage pre-setting: e.g. for the artists' social insurance (KSK)

When a new cost category is created, 100% is usually proposed as the default share. What does that mean?

If I have a category "office costs" and receive a purchase invoice for printer maintenance, I will probably book this 100% to the category "office costs", so the value "100%" makes sense here.

If I create the artists' social insurance as a cost category, I want to book only 4.9% (not 100%) of a creative's purchase invoice to the category "artists' social insurance", because that corresponds to the amount I have to remit to the artists' social insurance.

In this way I can see at a glance in the "Analysis of cost categories" report which reserves I need to set aside for the KSK in a certain period and later remit.

This procedure also makes sense for costs common in film production for insurances and contributions such as AGA, § 18a, etc.

If I have a purchase invoice, I can simply click on the cost category "artists' social insurance" and do not have to calculate exactly how much 4.9% of the net amount is. If such an invoice from your supplier also lists, for example, travel expenses that do not affect the KSK, the proposed value of 4.9% of the invoice's total net sum can also be adjusted manually. In general, we recommend in this case to complain to the supplier, as you risk having to pay additional KSK for the full invoice amount (including travel expenses) in the event of an audit.