Departments represent the internal teams and cost centers inside each company. They’re how you split costs within a company and report chargebacks at a useful level of detail.

Getting Started #

Create a department under the right company and fill the essentials:

• Company (which company this department belongs to)
• Name (what your teams recognize)

That’s enough to start. Description is optional. Tip: keep names unique within each company; this makes CSVs and lookups predictable.

Status and Disabled Date #

Use the Disabled date to schedule when a department stops being “active.”

• Enabled by default. You can set a future Disabled date.
• After the Disabled date:
  • It no longer appears in new selections (e.g., allocations and editors that fetch active lists).
  • Historical data remains intact; reports for years when it was active still include it.
• Lists default to “Enabled.” Clear or change the Status filter to review disabled or historical entries.
• Prefer disabling over deleting. Deleting is blocked if the department is referenced (allocations). When deletion isn’t allowed, disable it instead.

Yearly Metrics (Details tab) #

Departments track one metric per fiscal year:

• Headcount (required for that year if you allocate by department)

Where it matters:

• Allocations using “Manual by Department” recompute shares from that year’s department headcount. Missing or zero headcount triggers a prompt to fix it.
• Reporting uses these values for ratios and departmental splits.

Freeze and copy:

• Freeze (Master Data Ops → Freeze/Unfreeze Data) locks department metrics for a year, making the Details tab read‑only.
• Copy (Master Data Ops → Copy) moves headcount between years with a dry‑run preview. Frozen years can’t be overwritten.

Working with the List #

• Year selector at the top drives the Headcount column and freeze badge for that year.
• Quick search and column filters let you slice by Name, Company, Status, or Headcount.
• Click a row to open the workspace:
  • Overview: Company, Name, Description, lifecycle (Enabled + Disabled date)
  • Details: Headcount for the selected year
• Prev/Next navigation in the workspace respects the list’s sort/filter/search and the selected year.

CSV Import/Export #

Semicolon-separated CSV in UTF‑8.

Export:

• Template: company_name;name;description;status;disabled_at
• Data: the current departments with lifecycle fields

Import:

• Start with Preflight (dry run): validates headers, encoding, required fields, and lifecycle.
• Load applies inserts/updates if Preflight is OK.
• Matching is by (company_name, name). Duplicates in the file are deduplicated by that pair (first occurrence wins).
• Required: company_name, name
• Lifecycle: If both status and disabled_at are provided and conflict, the date wins (the system normalizes status accordingly).

Notes:

• Use UTF‑8 with BOM and semicolons.
• To avoid ambiguous updates, keep names unique per company. The importer updates a single match; duplicates in the database cause confusing results and will be blocked once strict uniqueness is enforced.

Permissions #

• Create/Edit: Departments “manager”
• Import/Export and Bulk delete: Departments “admin”
• Freeze/Unfreeze department metrics: Departments “admin” or Budget Ops “admin”

Tips #

• Headcount drives “Manual by Department” allocations—keep it current for the active budget year.
• Disable rather than delete to preserve history and keep reports meaningful.
• Plan ahead with Disabled dates. Records disappear from new selections then the date arrives, but historical reports still include them.