Cost Pools

Cost Pools and Sub Cost Pools represent the finance lens of IT spend in YäRKEN. They categorize where send is going—hardware, software, services, cloud, and more—so costs can be allocated consistently, analyzed clearly, and reported accurately.

Why Cost Pools matter

Cost Pools are the foundation of the TBM model. Every downstream view—Towers, Solutions, Consumers, Showback, and Chargeback—depends on accurate Cost Pool allocation.

What Cost Pools represent

Cost Pools classify spend by the nature of the cost (for example, labor, software, cloud, or facilities), not by who consumes it or where it is charged. Consumption-based allocation happens in later modeling steps.

How Cost Pool allocation works

Cost Pool allocation is the process of distributing spend from financial transactions into defined Cost Pools and Sub Cost Pools. This is driven by allocation rules, which automatically assign costs based on criteria such as account, expense type, cost center, vendor, or other attributes.

In YäRKEN Designer, Cost Pools are managed under the MAP section. Here, you define monthly allocation rules that distribute spend into Cost Pools and Sub Cost Pools for a selected fiscal year. The 12-month tile view gives you a quick snapshot of total spend, allocated spend and allocation percentage for each month, helping you track progress at a glance.

Prerequisites for allocating spend to Cost Pools

Before allocating spend to Cost Pools, ensure the following are in place:

Financial data (actuals) is loaded and available for the selected fiscal year and month.
Attributes such as Account, Cost Center, Expense Type, Vendor, Invoice, Purchase Order and Contracts are loaded.

Key principles:

Allocation is always monthly. Each month has its own set of rules.
Rules are executed in priority order.
A rule can fully or partially allocate spend.
Unallocated spend remains visible until mapped.

Cost Pool rules | Copying rules from another month

Cost Pool rules | Mapping spend manually