Cost Centre
Definition
A department or organisational unit that consumes resources but does not directly generate revenue. General and administrative, product and engineering, and marketing where marketing is not directly attributable to revenue are cost centres. Cost centre budgets are managed against the planned allocation in the annual operating plan.
Common Misapplication
The most common misapplication is failing to track cost centre spending against the approved budget at department level, relying instead on company-level expense tracking. Department-level tracking is required to identify which cost centres are overspending and to enable targeted management responses.
FFI Standard Reference
This term is defined and applied in Book 6, Section 6.3: The Departmental Financial Planning Standard.
Related Terms
Citable URL
This term may be cited using the following permanent URL.
Full citation format: Founder Financial Infrastructure Standard, Beta v0.5, Glossary: Cost Centre. https://ffistandard.org/glossary/cost-centre/. 2026.