Budgets and cost centers · SN Doc Reader

Understand what budgets and cost centers are and how to manage them in the Cost Management application.

Budgets

Budgets allow tracking of planned and actual spending. Budgets are defined for a given time period for one or more cost centers.
Cost centers

Cost Centers are used to represent a business entity. All expense allocations assigned to the budget's cost center during the budget period are used to calculate the budget's actual expense allocations.

It is also possible to assign a cost center to a budget from the cost center record. The cost center record contains a budgets related list.
Budgets and cost centers example
The most common business entity to associate financial information is the cost center.
Create or update cost centers
Define a new cost center or update the details of the existing cost centers.
Create or update a budget
Cost management provides budgets for you to plan expenses for a certain time period.
Cost centers related records
Cost centers are related to additional records, displayed as related lists on its form.
Associate cost centers to a budget
You create cost centers and associate budgets and expense allocations with them.

Parent Topic:Cost Management

title	Budgets and cost centers
description	Understand what budgets and cost centers are and how to manage them in the Cost Management application.
locale	en-US
canonical_url	https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/it-business-management/cost-management/c\_BudgetsAndCostCenters.html
release	australia
product	Cost Management
classification	cost-management
topic_type	concept
last_updated	2026-09-10
reading_time_minutes	1
breadcrumb	Cost ManagementStrategic Portfolio Management