Generating costs

Use the Licenses application to create a charge-back transaction for the currently displayed license. The transaction can be a cost adjustment, a no-cost transaction, an internal license usage or access charge, a receipt of software charge, or a license transfer charge. If recurring charges are applied to the current license on a regular basis (for example, monthly), this task helps you generate the appropriate transactions more efficiently.

Before you begin

Before you can create charge-back transactions for the currently displayed license, you must allocate one or more general ledger accounts that costs for the license can be distributed to. Use the Allocating a license task to perform this operation.

About this task

Charge-back for software licenses can enable departments to be compensated for software licenses that are redistributed to other departments. Charge-backs can occur when a license is received during procurement, when it is distributed, when it is used, and when its associated software is installed or maintained. Some organizations do not use charge-backs and simply track the charge at the initial procurement of a license.

For distributions, certain methods of charge-backs may be more appropriate to certain types of licenses, but the methods do not necessarily follow the distributions of license capacity.

For use-based licenses, the basis of the charges may vary according to the use-based costs the IT organization incurs, or the basis of the charges may be interpreted as a leveled or set rate according to an agreement between IT and the departments being served. The IT department may apportion charges to other departments according to the proportion of use that each department incurs, to the proportion of users in each department, or to an agreed-upon percentage or set cost.

No matter what system of charge-backs is used in your business, you probably want to see breakdowns of costs by software product and by the computer where it is installed. Thus transactions must be traceable to installed products and assets.

Charges may occur on a one-time or recurring basis, and in both cases they result in credits and debits being applied to accounts. If recurring charges are divided and applied on a regular basis, the Generate Costs action makes the process of creating the appropriate transactions easier.

Note: You can add costs directly and view cost records already associated with the license from the Costs tab.

The steps for generating costs follow.

Procedure

On the navigation bar, click Go To > Assets > Licenses.
In the Licenses application, display and select the license that you want to generate charge-back transactions for.
Select the Generate Costs action.
In the Defaults section, select the transaction type. This is the charge-back transaction. It can be a cost adjustment, a no-cost transaction, an internal license usage or access charge, a receipt of software charge, or a license transfer charge.
In the Generate Costs window, select whether you want to Generate Costs for Allocation by Type or Generate Costs by Selecting Specific Allocations.
1. If you select Generate Costs for Allocation by Type, you can select an allocation type in the Allocation Type field. The allocation types that you can select are location, computer asset, partition asset, GL account, application user, and other. After you select an allocation type, click the Generate License Costs button.
2. If you select Generate Costs by Selecting Specific Allocations, you can generate costs for a specific set of allocations from the Available Allocations table in the Generate Costs dialog. Each row in the table represents one of the license allocations and includes the type of allocation and the allocation reference. Each row in the table will include a checkbox. When you click inside the checkbox, you indicate that costs should be generated for the allocation next to it. After you select a set of allocations, click the Generate License Costs button.
When you click the Generate License Costs button, the License Costs section of the window is populated with data from the Allocations section of the License tab that corresponds with the allocation type you selected in step 5
For example, if you have two GL accounts allocated to the license on the License tab, two rows are displayed in the License Costs table.
Click OK. The license transfer is completed and you are returned to the Costs tab, where you can view cost records already associated with the license. The License Costs section is populated with your transaction information.
Click Save.

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