Departmental P&L Reporting

1. Goal: Decentralized Financial Accountability

Problem: The central finance team owns the P&L. Department heads (Sales, Marketing, IT) have no idea what they spent until they receive a static PDF 20 days after month-end. They cannot "drill down" to see why they are over budget. Solution: A live, self-service dashboard where every Budget Owner sees their own "Mini P&L" in real-time.

2. Core Value Proposition

• Transparency: No more "Black Box" accounting.
• Actionable: "Why is 'Travel' so high?" -> Click -> See the actual flight tickets (Invoices).
• Speed: Available on Day 1 of the new month (or even mid-month).

3. Workflow: The "Mini P&L" Logic

1. Tagging: Every transaction (Invoice, Payroll, Journal) must have a Cost Center or Project Code.
   • Constraint: Transactions without tags are flagged in the Monthly Closing Process as errors.
2. Allocation:
   • Direct Costs: Assigned 100% to the owner (e.g., Salesforce License -> Sales Dept).
   • Shared Costs: Allocated by key (e.g., Office Rent -> Split by Headcount).
3. Visualization:
   • User logs in (e.g., VP of Marketing).
   • System filters the Global P&L to show only Cost Center = Marketing.

4. Data Model

CostCenter

• cost_center_id (e.g., "CC-200")
• name ("Marketing")
• owner_user_id (VP Marketing)
• parent_id (for hierarchy, e.g., "Growth" includes "Marketing" + "Sales")

AllocationRule

• rule_id
• source_gl_account (e.g., "Rent")
• method: FIXED_PERCENTAGE | DYNAMIC_HEADCOUNT | DYNAMIC_REVENUE
• targets[]: { "CC-Sales": 40%, "CC-Eng": 60% }

5. UX/UI: The Owner's View

• The Waterfall: "Your Budget was $100k. You spent $105k. Here is the breakdown."
• The Drill-Down: Click on "Software Subscription ($50k)" -> See list of 12 vendors -> Click "Zoom" -> See individual invoices.
• The "Dispute" Button: "This invoice isn't mine!" -> Flags transaction for Finance to re-class.

6. Integration

• Inputs: GL Transactions, Cost Center Hierarchy.
• Outputs: Interactive Web Dashboard (replaces PDF reports).