Getting Started with
the Cost Accounting module
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Welcome to the Cost Accounting Module
of WinBooks on Web
This document is designed to help you understand how the Cost Accounting module works and how it can
effectively assist you in managing and analysing costs and revenues more effectively.
With the Cost Accounting module, you can:
 Create different extents to allocate and analyse costs and revenues. Those extents are called
“Dimension” in WinBooks on web. Examples of dimensions: department, project and so on.
 Create an unlimited number of values for these extents. Those values are called Cost Accounts in
WinBooks on web. Examples of Costs Accounts for dimension Department are marketing, sales,
production, administrative and so on. Examples of Costs Accounts for dimension Project are
project 1, project 2 and so on.
 Quickly and easily allocate the business transactions encoded in Accounting to the Costs
Accounts
 View cost accounting information in various Excel or PDF reports:
 Summarized
 Cross cost accounts and/or general accounts
 Specifically customized reports for deep analysis
Note: This document is mainly focused on the Cost Accounting module. If you have questions about the
Accounting module such as how to encode in Sales, Purchases, Bank&Cash, and Miscellaneous Operations
journals, please refer to Getting Started with Accounting module.pdf
To learn more about other versions of WinBooks on Web and their prices, go to
http://www.winbooks.be/fr/prices
We would love to hear from you! If you have any questions or comments about the Cost Accounting
module, please contact your reseller.
Thank you for using WinBooks on Web. We hope you will enjoy accounting with WinBooks on Web and let
us help you run your business more efficiently.
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Activating the Cost Accounting module
Click Settings on the
Toolbar – Control Panel
Click Folder options
Select tab Modules
Check Cost Accounting
Note: The Cost Accounting
module can be activated
only after you activate the
Accounting module
Click Save when finished
The application will restart
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Cost Accounting options
Click Control Panel - Cost
accounting options
Recommended settings for
cost accounting options
Click Save when finished
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Dimensions
A dimension is an extent allowing you to allocate and analyse costs and revenues. Each dimension consists
of a set of costs accounts. The Business version allows only one dimension while the Enterprise and
Accountant versions allow nine dimensions.
For instance, you could wish to allocate your expenses to two dimensions:


per Department
per Project
The list of cost accounts for the dimension Department could be for example:






R&D
Production
Sales
After sales
Marketing
Administration
The list of cost accounts for the dimension Project could be for example:



Project ABC
Project DEF
Project GHI
Go to Control Panel –
Dimension
Click New to add a new
dimension
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Enter Reference, Name
Select the Type and
Length for the dimension
Click Save when finished
Follow similar steps for the
2nd dimension
There are 3 types of dimensions:
Cost accounts: They are the standard type of dimension. Cost accounts are the cost bases for you to
allocate costs (Values = Text).
Date: This allows you to encode dates and use them in reports. (Values = Date)
Quantity: This allows you to encode quantities and use them in reports. (Values = Number)
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Cost accounts
Cost accounts can be understood as the objects for you to directly allocate costs. Cost accounts are
"children" of the dimensions. One dimension can have unlimited numbers of cost accounts.
Click Files (on Toolbar) –
Accounting – Cost accounts
Select the dimension to
create the cost accounts
for
Click New to create new
cost accounts
Enter Reference and
Name
Feel free to create and
select Category for the
cost account (for filtering
purpose)
Click Save when finished
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You could set up dimensions “Department” and “Project” with their cost accounts like suggested below:
Dimension “Department”
with its cost accounts
Dimension “Project” with its
cost accounts
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General accounts
You need to “turn on” the cost accounting feature for the general accounts before you can allocate costs to
these accounts. There are 2 ways to do this:

In batch: For example: you would like to allocate and analyse purchase costs by project. Therefore
you need to turn on the cost accounting feature for all general accounts beginning with 600.
Click Settings (on Toolbar)
- Control Panel - Cost
accounting - General
accounts
You need to click on the
red square to turn cost
accounting on for these
general accounts.
Note:
Clicking on a head account
will duplicate action for all
general accounts beginning
with this head account
Click Save when finished
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
One by one: For example: you would like to allocate fuel costs (account 611002) to just the
department Sales of the dimension Department. You can do this in the General Accounts form:
Click Files (on Toolbar) –
Accounting – General accounts
Select account 611002
and click on tab Form
Under “Cost accounting”
section, check
“Department” to turn on
this dimension for account
611002.
Click the lookup button to
view all cost accounts of
dimension Department
Select cost account Sales
Click Select
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Click Save
Allocate costs
Example 1: Let’s say you want to allocate fuel costs to department Sales after purchasing some gas
After entering all the
information of the
purchase and click Save,
the cost accounting form
will display automatically
Since you previously ‘turn
on’ only the Sales
department for account
611002, it will be
automatically filled in for
this account in the Cost
accounting form
Click Save
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Example 2: In this example, you purchase supplies and want to allocate the costs to different projects
For deeper analysis, dimension
“Quantity” is created
Dimensions “Project” and
“Quantity” are turned on
for the account 6010000
The finished allocation of
costs to a specific
quantity of each kind of
the product
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Example 3: In this example, you will use “Split on multiple references” to specify the percentage of cost
allocation and allocate a recurring cost to different cost accounts.
Let’s say you receive a purchase document for office cleaning for €200. You split this cost to 4 departments
according to the area occupied:
 R&D 15%
 Sales 40%
 Marketing 25%
 Administration 20%
Under dimension
“Department”, create a
new cost account
“Cleaning”
Make sure to check “Split
on multiple references”
After you check the
“Split on multiple
references”, all cost
accounts of the
dimension Department
will display.
Check the box “Select”
to select the cost
accounts.
Cost account CLEANING
can be considered as the
father of the selected
cost accounts.
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Enter the percentage for
each selected cost
account.
Note: the total
percentage must equal
100
Click Save when finished
After you encode the purchase document and click Save
automatically
, the Cost Accounting form will display
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In the cost accounting form, under “Department”, enter the “father” cost account. In this example, the
“father” cost account is CLEANING.
Click Save
when finished.
And this is the result of the cost allocation: The cost is split to 4 departments according to the percentage
that you had specified. If you have several recurring costs and repeated allocation of costs to different cost
accounts, this function can save you a lot of inputting time.
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Cost accounting reports
Click Output – Cost
accounting - Reports
Report: Accounting book with cost accounting
1. Select the report
5. Two available formats for reports
Just click on the format that you
would like your report to be printed
2. You can choose to print all
journals or click the “lookup”
button to select the journal to
print
3. Select fiscal year and
“Since” and “To” period
4. Click to select the region
and desired language for the
report layout and data
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Below is a sample of “Accounting book with cost accounting” report with the settings selected above:
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Report: Periodical balance per account
1. Select one report
5. Two available formats for reports
Just click on the format that you
would like your report to be printed
2. You can choose to print all
dimensions, cost accounts, and general
accounts or click the “lookup” button to
select the items to print
3. Select fiscal year and
“Since” and “To” period
4. Click to select the region
and desired language for the
report layout and data
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Below is a sample of “Periodical balance per account” report with the settings selected above:
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Report: Cross cost accounts
Click Output – Cost accounting
– Cross cost accounts
Click New to create a new
query
Enter the title of the
query
Click + for the column list
to appear.
After the column list
appears, click on the
column name on the list
to add the column to the
query.
Click + for the column list
to display again
Click Save when finished
After you are done creating the query, click Execute
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This is the result of the query:
You can export the
result to Excel or HTML
file
End of document. Thank you for using the Accounting module of WinBooks on web
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