In Exact Online a cost centre is a department, function, activity or item of equipment for which you collect costs and revenue. A cost unit is a further subdivision, such as a team within a department, but Exact does not link the two, so you can also use them independently. You create them under Financial > Analysis & Results and put them on each line of a purchase invoice, so you can report per cost centre or cost unit.
This guide covers the difference, the setup in Exact Online, splitting one invoice over several cost centres and common mistakes. I checked all Exact menu paths and features in the Exact knowledge base on 24 September 2026. The sources are at the bottom. The Dutch interface labels are in brackets where they help.
What is the difference between a cost centre and a cost unit?
The G/L account says what you bought: office supplies, rent, software. The cost centre (kostenplaats) says where the cost belongs: sales, the workshop, the eastern branch. So you see not only what you spend on software, but also which department spends it.
A cost unit (kostendrager) goes one level deeper. Exact's own examples: the accountancy team within the head office cost centre, or a regional office within a country cost centre. But in Exact Online the two are not tied together. You can use cost units for something else entirely, or use only cost centres.
| Topic | Cost centre | Cost unit |
|---|---|---|
| What it is according to Exact | A production or service location, function, activity or item of equipment for which you collect costs and revenue | A subdivision of a cost centre, for example a team or regional office |
| Linked to the other? | No, usable on its own | No, usable on its own |
| Create | Financial > Analysis & Results > Cost centres > Overview | Financial > Analysis & Results > Cost units > Overview |
| Mandatory or default per G/L account | Yes, in the Cost analysis section | Yes, in the Cost analysis section |
| Reporting | Transactions, Results and Analytical values | Transactions and Results; also in Analytical values as the third level |
Cost centres and cost units are part of GL coding: assigning G/L account, VAT code and optionally a cost centre to an invoice or invoice line. You find more terms in the glossary.
Step by step: how to set it up in Exact Online
Step 1. Make sure you have the right role
To add, edit or delete cost centres or cost units, you need the Maintain cost analysis master data role (Stamgegevens kostenanalyse beheren). No buttons? That is usually why.
Step 2. Create your cost centres and cost units
Go to Financial > Analysis & Results > Cost centres > Overview and click New. Enter a Code and a Description and click Save + New to create the next one straight away. For cost units you do the same under Financial > Analysis & Results > Cost units > Overview.
Choose a logical code scheme, for example 100 for sales and 110 and 120 for the teams under it.
Step 3. Link them to your G/L accounts
This step matters most and is skipped most. Go to Financial > Entries & G/L Accounts > G/L Accounts > Overview and click the code of the G/L account. In the Cost analysis section you choose one of three options for Cost centre and for Cost unit:
- No: you do not post a cost centre on this account.
- Optional: you may choose a cost centre, but you do not have to.
- Mandatory: an entry on this account must have a cost centre. If you choose Mandatory, you must also choose a default cost centre.
With Add: Link you set which cost centres belong to this account. In the Default field you pick the default value with the magnifying glass. Note: in an entry you can only choose cost centres that are already linked to that G/L account. It also works the other way round, from the cost centre, with Add: G/L Account.
Step 4. Put the column on your entry screen
If you see no cost centre column when you post, customise the page. Go to Financial > Entries & G/L Accounts > Entries > Create, click the (Entries) hyperlink of the journal, for example your purchase journal, and open an entry. Click the icon and then Customise. In the Lines section, tick Cost centre or Cost unit and click Save.
Step 5. Put the cost centre on every invoice line
The column is now on every line of your purchase entry. If the G/L account has a default cost centre, Exact fills it in. Otherwise you choose it. Then you can filter reports and G/L transactions by cost centre or cost unit.
Splitting one invoice over several cost centres
An invoice from Voorbeeldleverancier BV with laptops for sales, a screen for the workshop and a licence for finance belongs on three cost centres. In Exact that is three lines in one purchase entry, each with its own amount and cost centre.
The catch is the Scanning service. For an invoice with several lines it puts the cumulative amount in the entry proposal, with a separate line per VAT percentage. To post lines separately, Exact says you work by hand or with an entry template. So splitting is your job, line by line.
For a fixed split, an entry template helps. Go to Company name > Master data > Financial > Entry templates (Administratienaam > Stamgegevens > Financieel > Boekingtemplates), choose the journal and click New. With the calculation method Relative weight (Relatief gewicht) you decide in which ratio the total amount is divided over the lines. If you link the template to a supplier, Exact selects it by itself for a new entry for that supplier. Useful for rent that goes over two branches in the same ratio every month.
Defaults per G/L account or supplier
The default I could check in the Exact knowledge base sits on the G/L account: the default cost centre from step 3. I did not find a default cost centre on the supplier card itself in the knowledge base. What you can do per supplier is link an entry template, as above.
Only use a default when that account almost always belongs to one department. Otherwise the field is filled, so nobody looks.
Reporting per cost centre
Exact gives you three places under Financial > Analysis & Results:
- Cost centres > Transactions (and Cost units > Transactions): the transactions per cost centre, which you can filter and export to Excel. (Dutch: Kaarten.)
- Cost centres > Results (and Cost units > Results): an overview of results per cost centre or cost unit.
- Cost centres > Analytical values: a report in PDF, Excel or Word in which you group up to three levels and choose the G/L accounts, cost centres, cost units and period.
Handy trick: in Analytical values choose Cost centre for Level 1 and G/L Account for Level 2, tick Details and generate. One section then shows all transactions without a cost centre: the forgotten lines.
To fix a processed entry, open the G/L account, click Transactions in the Monitor section, select the transaction and choose Cost centre or Cost unit from the arrow next to Correct.
Authorising per cost centre
A cost centre often has a budget holder who must authorise the invoice. Exact Online has built-in approval of purchase invoices: you choose from a list of approvers or let the invoice amount decide the approver, and you can have invoices from certain suppliers approved automatically. I did not find choosing an approver based on the cost centre in the knowledge base. How authorising works in Exact is explained in authorising invoices in Exact Online.
Common mistakes
- Cost centre forgotten on some lines. On an Optional account, Exact simply posts the line without one. Your department report is wrong and nobody notices. Set such accounts to Mandatory and run the overview of transactions without a cost centre every month.
- The whole invoice on one cost centre. Fast, but goods for three departments then land with one budget holder. Split the lines. It costs a minute and saves a discussion every quarter.
- Too many cost centres. Forty cost centres for thirty people means nobody knows which to pick. Start with departments where someone owns a budget. Go finer with cost units later.
- Coding the same supplier differently each time. One month sales, the next general. Your report becomes noise, and any automation that learns from your entries learns the noise too.
- Changing the structure mid-year. Then the first half and the second half use a different split. Exact can recode a cost centre, and all its transactions get the new code. But you cannot delete a cost centre that has transactions. New structure? Preferably per financial year.
How Glimps does it
Glimps only works with Exact Online. Cost centres, projects, G/L accounts and VAT codes come straight from your administration. Glimps reads every line and proposes G/L account, VAT and cost centre per line the way you posted that supplier before, from your own posting history. If Glimps is in doubt about a field, it stays empty.
Then Glimps posts the entry in Exact Online itself, as far as you allow per supplier. The invoice from Voorbeeldleverancier BV arrives as three lines with three cost centres, not as one total. Eight checks stop or limit a posting, such as a possible duplicate. Glimps never pays.
Rules send an invoice to the right authoriser based on amount, supplier, G/L account or cost centre, so the workshop invoice reaches the workshop's budget holder. How the posting itself works is explained in posting purchase invoices automatically in Exact Online.
You start today. You connect Exact Online yourself and your first invoice is processed within minutes. You try it free for 14 days; the plans are on the pricing page. Prefer to look around first? Open the demo. Glimps does not support Peppol or UBL.
Conclusion
Setting it up in Exact takes an afternoon. The real work is in splitting invoices with several lines and staying consistent. Keep the structure small, set important accounts to Mandatory, look up the lines without a cost centre every month and change the structure only at the start of a new financial year.