Towers

Towers represent the functional grouping of technology resources in your TBM model. While Cost Pools describe what type of cost you incur, Towers explain where and how those costs are used across technology domains — for example, Compute, Applications, Network, Storage, and End User.

Tower allocation is at the center of the cost distribution flow, connecting financial data to technology assets, and eventually to solutions and customers.

In Yarken Designer, Towers are managed under the MAP section, where you define Tower rules, asset rules, and asset mappings on a monthly basis to associate technology assets—and their related costs—with the appropriate Towers.

Why Towers matter

Towers provide the operational context needed to understand IT spend beyond finance. Accurate Tower mapping allows you to:

Understand where infrastructure and application costs reside
Analyze cost drivers within technology domains

Without Tower mapping, technology costs stay in general ledger structures that don't show who is responsible for what or how it is used.

What Towers represent

Towers categorize technology spend and resources by functional domains, such as:

Application
Compute
Data Center
Delivery
End User
IT Management
Network
Output
Platform
Security & Compliance
Storage

How Tower allocation works

Once Cost Pool allocation is completed for a month, the Cost Pool and Sub Cost Pool spend is becomes available to Towers. At this stage, you define how that spend should be distributed across technology domains using Tower rules, Asset rules, and Asset mappings.

Allocation flow at the Tower level:

Cost Pool spend can be allocated to one or more Towers and then distributed further to assets or solution offerings.
When spend is allocated to assets such as Applications, Products, or Services, it can be distributed directly to Solution Offerings as asset-level spend.
When spend is allocated to other asset types—such as computers, hardware, cloud, or employees—it must first be consolidated into Applications, Products, or Services using asset rules or asset mappings.
Spend allocated directly to Solution Offerings flows straight to Solutions as a direct allocation.
If Tower-level spend is not distributed further, it remains at the Tower level and does not flow to Solutions or Consumers.

Tower allocation is performed monthly. Each month maintains its own set of rules and mappings.

Managing asset spend at Tower

In Yarken, Applications, Products, and Services are the primary asset categories used for solution costing. These assets act as mandatory consolidation points before spend can flow to Solutions.

How asset spend is managed at Tower-level

Assets are classified into multiple types, for example, Hardware, Databases, Cloud, and Employees.
Only Applications, Products, and Services can distribute spend to Solution Offerings.
Spend from other asset types cannot be directly distributed to Solution Offerings.

Because of this, spend from non-primary asset types must first be allocated to Applications, Products, or Services.

Required consolidation step

When spend is distributed to asset types other than Applications, Products, or Services:

That spend must first be allocated to Applications, Products, or Services using asset-to-asset distribution methods.
Once consolidated into these primary asset categories, the spend is automatically distributed to Solution Offerings.
The consolidated spend is treated as asset spend when flowing into Solutions.

Asset-to-asset distribution methods

To distribute spend from other asset types to the primary asset categories, you must perform asset-to-asset distribution. Yarken supports two methods:

Asset Rules – Use condition-based logic to dynamically distribute spend across assets. For more information on asset rules, refer Asset rules.
Asset Mapping – Use file-based mappings to explicitly distribute spend between assets using asset codes and defined portions. For more information on asset mapping, refer Asset mapping.

Both Asset Rules and Asset Mapping are created and managed monthly under Towers.

Identify unallocated asset spend

The UNALLOCATED ASSET SPEND option under ellipsis (…) menu on month tile helps you identify asset-level spend that is not yet distributed to Applications, Products, or Services. For more information on unallocated asset spend, refer View unallocated asset spend.

Supported asset name formats

When creating Asset Rules or uploading Asset Mapping files, Yarken is flexible with how asset names are entered:

Singular and plural values are both accepted
Uppercase and lowercase values are both accepted

However, the following formats are not supported:

Hyphens (-) between words
Underscores (_) between words

For example, use Network Devices instead of Network-Devices or Network_Devices.

Using unsupported formats may result in the rule or mapping not being applied correctly.

Prerequisites for mapping to Towers

Before allocating spend to Towers, ensure that:

Cost Pool/Sub Cost Pool spend is partially or fully allocated
Asset data is available and loaded for distribution (for example, application, products, or services)
Attributes such as Account, Cost Center, Expense Type, Vendor, Invoice, Purchase Order and Contracts are loaded.

Tower rules | Copying rules from another month

Tower rules | Mapping spend manually

Technology Business Management